How Does Your Child Grow?

Weight is a hefty matter for America’s kids.  One in three kids is overweight or obese. Although normal growth is a reality for the majority of our nation’s children, it is easy to have a distorted view of what normal child growth looks like.

Growth is the hallmark of good nutrition in children.  Let’s face it, those bambinos are TINY when born!  When you first hold a newborn, you cannot help but appreciate how small they are–and wonder at the enormous task ahead–evolving into an adult.  It seems insurmountable…and unbelievable.  But it happens, and in a very natural way.

Regular visits with your pediatrician will help you know if your child is growing normally. At that time, your child will be weighed and measured and his growth will be plotted on a growth chart. Typically, children follow a predictable channel of growth (which appears as a curve that mimics the percentile channels) for height and weight throughout childhood. If your child’s growth changes 2 growth channels in either direction, this may be a sign that abnormalities in growth are occurring.  Your child may be gaining weight too fast, losing weight, or not growing in height properly.

Childhood growth is divided into 4 major phases:  infancy, preschool years, middle childhood, and adolescence.

During infancy (0-2 years), a baby experiences rapid growth, unlike any other time in life.  By the end of the first year, a baby triples his birth weight.  That’s exponential!  Babies are born with an inner sense of hunger and fullness and this makes them good at self-regulating food and liquid intake, promoting normal (and fast) growth.

The preschool years ( 3 – 6 years)  and the middle school years (7 – 10 years) are a time of stabilized and steady growth.  You may notice the body changes between boys and girls at about 10 years.  Girls begin to outpace boys in growth, due to the onset of maturation.  In fact, at 10 years, girls are approximately half an inch taller and 2# heavier than their boy “friends”.  Not for long, though.

Enter adolescence.  It is a long, drawn out period in a child’s (and parent’s!) life.  It generally begins at 11 years and continues until age eighteen.  Between 11-14 years, most girls are experiencing their adolescent growth spurt, and starting to develop into women.  Boys, on the other hand, continue to hang out for a couple of years before they begin their growth spurt (13-16 years).  That’s why we have that awkward time frame when the girls are bigger and act older (and moodier) than the boys. Alas, boys get their spurt too–and their spurt lasts longer and their growth is greater, compared to girls.  During the teen years, girls add more body fat than boys, and boys develop more muscle tissue than girls.

At the end of all this growing, your newborn has evolved into a man or woman.  An incredible, dynamic evolution.

What do you notice about your child’s growth?