THE WHY SERIES
Report by Ananya Singh
Have you noticed that while you grow, elders around you remain static? I, for one, measure my height at least once a month to ascertain if I have grown any taller. But I have never seen adults do this. This is because after a certain age, people stop growing. Children grow in height due to their bones lengthening and this process typically slows down around the age of 25.
The person still grows, but the change is almost unnoticeable. Around 35-40 years of age, a person reaches their full height. Their bones no longer lengthen, and their height stops growing completely. After that,
people decrease around 0.5 inches every 10 years due to the drying-up of cartilages in our body.
But what is it that controls our growth?
We all must have heard of the digestive system and respiratory system. The former is in relation to how we eat and assimilate food, and the latter to understand the function of our lungs. Similarly, there is an endocrine system in our body. The endocrine system becomes active around the age of 12, when all the body organs start to function properly. But you must be wondering, even babies grow and they’re not around the age of 12!
The endocrine system consists of numerous glands, all of which come into effect at different ages. The pituitary gland, which is attached to our brain, is responsible for the proper growth of our body. It stimulates the bones to merge and lengthen thereby making us grow. The functions of the pituitary gland are same in all the bodies, but not everyone is of the same height. This depends on the genes we have inherited from our parents and the rate at which the gland is working.
It is highly likely that the child with tall parents will also be tall and a child with shorter parents will be short. This is not to claim that a child cannot be taller than their parents, however, it is not very common. If the pituitary gland works too hard, then our arms and legs will become longer than they should be, and our hands and feet will become bigger than normal. If the gland doesn’t work hard enough, we would all be like tiny dwarfs.
