A new analysis of Child Measurement Programme data from England, Scotland, and Wales challenges recent reports suggesting children in Britain are getting shorter. The analysis, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, reveals that average child height has increased over the past two decades. But these gains are not related to improved child health, the researchers
Being overweight or obese causes hormonal changes, which accelerate children’s development. Obese children grow faster, so they tend to be taller than their healthy-weight peers. But obese children have a greater risk of disease in later life, including diabetes and heart disease.
Without further research on my end what this means to me is “poor children are more likely to be obese and reach their, presumably shorter, adult height earlier in their childhood”.
Body-fat caused hormonal imbalances (mentioned in the article).
This also includes estrogen and testosterone, linking it to precocious (early) puberty.
And it doesn’t exactly cause tallness, but often quite the opposite (as you already mentioned): Affected persons typically are shorter than the norm once grown up.
It just triggers growth at an earlier point in life, so the children are taller on average at a certain fixed age.
Cool, how does obesity cause tallness though? All the studies I could find demonstrate the exact opposite relationship
It’s right there in the article, first paragraph:
Without further research on my end what this means to me is “poor children are more likely to be obese and reach their, presumably shorter, adult height earlier in their childhood”.
Body-fat caused hormonal imbalances (mentioned in the article).
This also includes estrogen and testosterone, linking it to precocious (early) puberty.
And it doesn’t exactly cause tallness, but often quite the opposite (as you already mentioned): Affected persons typically are shorter than the norm once grown up.
It just triggers growth at an earlier point in life, so the children are taller on average at a certain fixed age.