It’s measuring day. You get your tape out as usual to measure your kid’s height. Then you notice the dread. Your child’s height has only increased by one or two centimeters in the past six months. What could be wrong? You wonder. Then you go on a frantic search to know what you need to do to increase height in kids because there must be something you are doing wrong.
First thing to remember, genetics play about 60-80% role in the growth of a child. The second is that many external factors affect a child’s growth. As a parent, you want your child to grow tall and healthy. And to achieve that goal, you need to work on your child’s formative years. This might be why you are worried that they’re not growing as well as fast as you want them to.
To combat this slow growth, you can introduce some practices into your child’s lifestyle to help them grow as strong and healthy as you want them to. These methods are not legendary, but they are unique and effective. Mind you, no child will hit the growth sprout buzz overnight. What you can do with these tips to increase height in kids is influence the height of your child.
Tips on How to Increase Height in Kids
1. Make a Balanced Diet
Diet plays an important role in the growth of a child, even people in general. If you want to increase your child’s height, the first thing you need to do is stick to a healthy diet. Get rid of all the junk food and try superfoods for kids. Not only will a balanced diet make them stronger, but it will also help them grow healthy.
You should feed them foods rich in carbohydrates, protein, and fat. They should eat these nutritious meals in moderation and stick mostly to foods that would strengthen their bones and stimulate body growth.
2. Practicing Hanging Exercises
Bar hanging at the playground can be fun for your child and also beneficial to increase their height. Hanging helps in straightening and elongating the spine of your child. Whether it’s upside-down or straight-hanging, the muscles and limbs are stretched and straightened. Pull-ups and chin-ups are a great way to enhance height growth. They must work on the bar for about 10 minutes every day to get their height increased.
3. Swimming
Exercises are great for not only strengthening a child’s muscles but for also keeping them fit and growing taller. Swimming is a full-body exercise that helps to burn fat and also straighten the spine. You can get your child to enjoy this activity because what child doesn’t like playing in the water?
4. Stretching Exercises
One of the most effective tips to increase height in kids is stretching. Here your child could do a backward stretch, which involves standing with their back against a wall and raising their hands as far as they can. You can also have them sit straight and stretch their hands forward to touch their toes. Doing this several times a day will greatly improve their height.
Other simple stretching exercises include standing and then bending to touch their toes. They could also sit and spread their legs as wide apart as they can. Doing these stretches at least four times a day will improve spine elongation and posture.
5. Skipping
When your child does active exercises like skipping, they are stretching their body entirely. And the good part, kids love skipping. So this can be a fun exercise to increase height in children. Not only is skipping a good cardio workout, but it also improves the vertical growth of a child.
6. Ankle Weights
Didn’t know this will be part right? Well, lifting ankle weights is a workout that helps to stretch the lower part of the body. The cartilage between a child’s knees begins to stretch as the weight is lifted, thus making them taller. You can increase the weights as your child grows older.
7. Jogging
Jogging should not be a thing for only adults. Get your children to jog or exercise with you. Jogging can encourage a child’s height growth by increasing the quantity of growth hormone HGH. It also strengthens the leg muscles and bones of your child.
8. Yoga
Yoga is a wonderful breathing and stretching exercise art. You can have your kids do yoga poses like Surya Namaskar to help them grow tall. The pose involves the body stretching completely, thus encouraging height growth.
Another great yoga pose is the Chakrasana. This involves you lying flat on your back and your legs wide apart. Then you bend your knees to touch your buttock and also bend your elbows so that the fingers can touch the shoulder. Then you breathe in deeply and push the body up to create a U-shape. This pose is good for stretching the entire body too.
9. Getting a Good Sleep
Sleep plays another important role when it comes to increasing a child’s height. Though it might not affect the growth of a child in the long term, it does help to get them stronger and taller.
Getting a child to sleep for 8 hours will help the growing stage while the child rests. This is because the child’s growth hormone, HGH, is released as the child sleeps. So do not allow your child to avoid sleeping, they must always have nap time and their regular night sleep to help their growing phase.
10. Posture
A child having a proper posture can play a part in their height increase. Slouching or slumping can weigh or put unnecessary stress on the spine. This could lead to a side effect on the growth of the child. Also, poor or bad posture can automatically change the child’s spine shape and lead to a compromise in his growth.
When your child is forming a bad posture, help them correct their posture and remind them to sit and not slouch. Doing this will not only increase their height but also prevent health issues down the line.
11. Sunlight
Vitamin D helps muscle growth and the sunlight is a great source of the vitamin. Vitamin D is alone good for growing the bones by absorbing calcium from your child’s diet. This also helps to strengthen the bones. If you want to increase heights in children, have them go out to play. They don’t have to stay indoors all day watching TV or playing video games, they can get good nutrients from the sunlight.
But when they are going, have them wear sunscreen to protect them from the sun’s UV rays. And if you are looking for other vitamin D sources, you can add foods like fatty fish, egg yolks, and mushrooms.
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Increase Height in Kids FAQs
Will genetics affect my child’s growth?
The answer is yes, it does. You can’t expect your child to grow as tall as 7 foot if you and your partner are of average height. But it has been proven by science that ethnic background plays a role in how much genetics affect a child’s height growth. This means that natural race could play a role between 60 to 80% in your child’s growth.
What types of foods are best to increase height in kids?
Several foods play a beneficial role in improving a child’s height. These foods include plant-based protein like beans, lentils, hemp seeds, flax seeds, almonds, and walnuts. Also, dairy foods like milk and yogurt are rich in protein, vitamins A, B, D, E, and calcium. Milk also contains Omega 3 which is good for strengthening the bones.
Eggs are another source of great protein because they contain healthy fats, vitamin B12, and calcium. And a diet is not complete without fruits and vegetables. You should add vegetables like spinach or kale that are rich in essential minerals and vitamins. And tropical fruits like orange, mangoes, bananas, grapefruit are a plus to a child’s diet.
Whole grains are also perfect for a diet. You should feed your child with whole grains like oatmeal, brown rice, and whole-wheat flour. But try as much as possible to avoid carbohydrate-rich foods like pizza, soda, and cereals.
Will supplements help to increase the height of my kid?
Supplements do work and improve height. But this is mostly for children that suffer from one growth deficiency or the other. For example, if the growth hormone, HGH, is not producing naturally, then supplements are recommended to help the child grow normally.
Also, there are some harmful ingredients marketed as growth aiding whereas they do more damage than good. Such ingredients include Alpha-GPC, L-Leucine, and L-Glutamine. These supplements are not established as safe for children. These three when overdosed can cause severe symptoms like dermatitis, diarrhea, or delirium.
How do I measure my kid’s height growth?
This is no rocket science and it involves simple steps like this:
- You get your child to stand straight against the wall. Make sure he or she is looking straight ahead.
- And then you level a flat book against the wall, bringing it down until it is resting on your child’s head.
- And then you mark the height on the wall. You can also use a digital growth chart to keep yearly records of your child’s height growth.
Conclusion
Tall people naturally have great advantages in the world. That is why many parents want to increase the height of kids to guarantee them that safe spot. When you notice your child is not growing as he/she should, you can follow tips to increase their height like giving them a good diet, making them exercise regularly, and practicing yoga.
Though many factors affect a child’s growth, you cannot do much about the genetic factor. But you can get your child in top form and get him/her to be the best they can be.
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