Can being healthy make you taller?
While you can’t control your genetics, you can control lifestyle habits that can help you or your children grow taller while also becoming healthier. Different aspects in your environment like nutrition and exercise can impact growth patterns.
So are we saying that things you eat and the way you exercise can help determine your height? Yes! Your genes determine approximately 80% of your height but the other 20% is determined by external factors.
While it might be too late for some of us to increase our height, we can help our children reach their full potential of becoming tall, dark and handsome.
Sleep
That’s right, sending your kids to bed on time can help them grow taller.
When children are sleeping, growth hormones are released. These growth hormones can help muscles, bones, cells, and tissues grow and function properly.
The younger your child is, the more sleep they need. Making sure they get a proper amount of sleep most nights will allow their bodies to have more time to rest and grow. Recommended amounts of sleep for children, teens, and young adults include:
- 0-3 months: 14-17 hours
- 4-11 months: 12-15 hours
- 1-2 years: 11-14 hours
- 3-5 years: 10-13 hours
- 6-13 years: 9-11 hours
- 14-17 years: 8-10 hours
- 18-25 years: 7-9 hours
Ensuring that children typically get this amount of sleep will give their bodies time to release growth hormones and help them become taller!
Eat Good
You are what you eat!
What you feed your children will impact a lot of things when it comes to their health and body, including their height. There are several things you should feed your children to help them grow tall:
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Protein
- Eat: eggs, chicken, and beans.
- This will help fuel growing bodies with nutrients like riboflavin, B vitamins, amino acids, and more. These will help to nourish and strengthen kids’ bodies which can increase their height potential.
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Fruits and Vegetables
- Eat: broccoli, garlic, carrots, strawberries, oranges, bananas, and more.
- Fruits and vegetables are packed with excellent nutrients called phytochemicals. Eating a variety of different colored fruits and vegetables will provide a variety of healthy vitamins and minerals. This will allow young bodies to grow.
- Have picky kids? There are some alternatives to make sure your kids get fruits and vegetables everyday if they refuse to eat the real thing. There are some whole food supplement options that can be added to food. A great natural one is Balance of Nature! You can also look into Juice Plus+ or Texas Superfood.
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Whole Grains
- Eat: bread, pasta, and cereal (all made of whole grains of course)
- This will fuel bodies with things like magnesium and zinc. These minerals are great for growing big and strong bones.
Eating a balanced diet is great for growing bodies. These foods will help provide a variety of nutrients that can promote your children’s body to grow taller.
Move Your Body
And if you want, turn on the Backstreet Boys and rock your body because tall people can dance too!
Exercising and moving your body is good for many reasons. It helps to strengthen muscles and bones which can promote better growth. Certain exercises can even stretch your spinal cord and make you taller! Have your kids do things like:
- Jump rope
- Walk or run
- Yoga
- Stretch
- Ride bikes
Staying active from a young age is important to health and can help bodies stay healthy and grow more.
Stand Tall
Did you know you can actually make yourself look taller?
That’s right! By working on correcting your posture you can actually make yourself appear taller and even thinner. Bad posture can make you look inches shorter. To start correcting your posture work on:
- Wearing supportive footwear
- Sitting straight in chairs
- Relaxing your body
- Stretch
- Look in the mirror at the alignment of your earlobes, hips, knees, and ankles
Correcting bad posture can be difficult but once corrected, it can help one appear taller as well as prevent future back and neck problems.
It turns out that being healthy can help you become taller. Living a healthy lifestyle can help boost height in young, growing bodies.
