Most common questions used to investigate
Are your parents tall?
Is someone in your family like a grandparent tall?
Does nutrition have an impact on height?
Does ethnicity matter?
Do supplements matter?
Do childhood diseases inhibit growth?
Common conclusions
The chances for you to be tall is high. In general, it is recommended to add the height of both the parents and add five inches to it for boys and subtract five inches for girls. Divided the final answer by two and that should give the height of children. According to this calculator, both the parents should be above average for you to get taller than six feet. A word of caution here, this is a general calculator and it can vary from child to child and from family to family, depending on a host of other factors.
Height is a polygenic character and not based on a single gene. This means you can inherit the height gene for either of your parents and sometimes, even your grandparents. So, if there is someone in your family - parents, grandparents, or great grandparents who are tall, the chances for you to be tall is high. But the catch is it is hard to predict if you'll inherit the gene of the tallest member of your family. It is just a stroke of luck or chance and you have no control over it.
A study at the U.S Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University concludes that about 20 to 40 percent of an individual's height depends on nutrition.
Research shows that ethnicity plays a big role because of the difference in genetics and environments. For example, the Masai tribe in Africa average more than six feet while the average height of pygmies is about 4 feet 10 inches. Obviously, if your ancestors are from any of these tribes, you will be tall or short accordingly. While these are extreme, in general, ethnicity has a big bearing on your height.
To some extent, supplements impact the height of people. An important nutrient for height is consumption of protein in your childhood. Also, minerals like calcium and abundant quantities of vitamins A and D are known to influence height. In fact, experts recommend the best possible nutrition for children before they attain puberty.
Prolonged diseases in childhood that prevent a child from consuming nutritional foods can impact height. Also, some diseases like diabetes are known to have a bigger toll on children, and on average, they tend to be short when compared to the average height of both the parents.
Studies prove that the human growth hormone is highly resilient and can remedy many growth defects related to childhood diseases, especially if they are short-lived. It is also important to understand that more research is needed in this area before making a conclusive connection between height and a specific type of disease.
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