When Do Girls Stop Growing?
The median age at which girls stop growing is around puberty. Most girls reach their growth spurt between ages 10 and 14 years old. By the time they are 15 to 18 years old, most of them have reached their adult height (1). However, some girls may not reach their adult height until later in life due to certain medical conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome or other health issues.
What’s the Median Height?
In order to get a better idea of what the median height is, it helps to know how tall each person is in relation to everyone else. If there are 100 people, then the tallest one would be 1 meter tall and the shortest one would be 0.5 meters tall. So if someone was 5’7″ and another person was 6′0″, then both of them would fall into the “tall” category.
Below you will see a chart showing the average heights of men and women from different countries. The United States is shown as the middle country with an average height of 175 cm for men and 164 cm for women. Japan comes next with an average height of 163 cm for men and 158 cm for women. Australia follows closely behind with an average height of 162 cm for men and 156 cm for women.
The shortest country in the world for average height is Guatemala with men being an average of 157 cm and women being an average of 140 cm.
What’s the Average Height for a Girl?
The average height of a girl at birth is 49 cm and increases to 76-82 cm by 2 years of age. At 11 years of age, the average height is 133-145 cm and at 15 years of age it increases to 155-164 cm (2). On average, girls tend to be 1-3 inches shorter than boys.
What is the Average Height of a Teenage Girl?
On average, a teenage girl will be 48-57 inches. The smallest 5% of teenage girls will be less than 5’4″ and the tallest 5% will be more than 6’0″(3).
How to Grow Taller after Puberty
After puberty, males grow at a much faster rate. From age 16 to 25, males grow about 2 inches each year. Females only grow about 1 inch every year during this time (4). There are some medical conditions that may cause a person to stop growing.
A doctor can help you figure out if this is the case.
Does it Matter if you are a Girl or a Boy?
It is completely normal and typical for boys to be taller than girls. On average, adult men are about 5-10 cm or 2-4 inches taller than women.
Genetics play a large role in determining how tall you will grow. While nutrition and exercise can have an effect on your adult height, they really don’t play a role until after puberty; by which time the adult structure of your body has already been determined by genetics.
Does it Matter if you are Left or Right?
It doesn’t matter if you are left or right handed because the height differences are minimal. Being ambidextrous could potentially make you a little taller than average, but it is not something that you can switch on and off.
How Tall are you Compared to Everyone Else?
Sources & references used in this article:
Standards from birth to maturity for height, weight, height velocity, and weight velocity: British children, 1965. I. by JM Tanner, RH Whitehouse… – Archives of disease in …, 1966 – ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Growth in pediatric orthopaedics by A Dimeglio – Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 2001 – journals.lww.com
Secular growth changes by JC Van Wieringen – Human growth, 1978 – Springer
Secular trends in growth by TJ Cole – Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 2000 – cambridge.org
Effect of stimulants on height and weight: a review of the literature by SV Faraone, J Biederman, CP Morley… – Journal of the American …, 2008 – Elsevier
Recombinant growth hormone in children and adolescents with Turner syndrome by CB Cave, J Bryant, R Milne – Cochrane Database of …, 2003 – cochranelibrary.com
The secular trend in human physical growth: a biological view by TJ Cole – Economics & Human Biology, 2003 – Elsevier
