How can filipinos grow taller

Tellingly, no woman shorter than cm has ever won the Miss Universe title. In beauty pageants, height emerges as a constitutive element of beauty. More significantly, however, height remains a requirement for many jobs in the Philippines, particularly those that are within reach of the great majority.

To be a police officer, for instance, the law requires a height of least cm for males and cm for females. Security guards are legally required to be least cm. Many scientists agree that height is partly genetic and partly environmental, and that nutrition plays a big role in maximising genetic potential. Even so, wealth and good quality of life are no guarantee of tallness. Perhaps this uncertainty is why growth supplements, despite the lack of evidence for their efficacy, continue to be in high demand: they make hope available for consumption.

Studies from various fields - from evolutionary psychology to economic history - support the view that height is indeed advantageous in many ways. Tall people are more likely to have higher salaries , overall success in their careers , and even more sexual partners. Cultural history can furnish some context to help us make sense of the meanings of height.

In the Philippines, while a preference for tallness can be found in some indigenous, likely precolonial epics , the American colonial period can arguably be identified as the period when height truly became a premium. All of the children who were no longer stunted by WHO criteria had heights above the 25 th percentile of the Filipino reference at age 8. Together, these observations show a clear improvement in stature with age up to the pre-adolescent period. In this respect, results are similar to those reported by Walker et al.

In an analysis of Ugandan children less than 5 y of age followed over a 2-y period, Vella et al. Further evidence of catch-up growth was reviewed by Martorell et al. To study determinants of catch-up growth, we analyzed overall growth increments, recovery from stunting and greater than expected growth rates irrespective of attained size at the beginning of the interval under study.

Results from these three different analyses were similar in most respects, but differed in the importance of birth characteristics as determinants of growth patterns in older children. Catch-up growth represents an interaction of the child's biological growth potential with environmental factors that enhance growth, among which optimal nutrition and low morbidity are most prominent. The recovery from stunting models only analyze children whose poor linear growth left them stunted at age 2 y.

Some of these stunted children, despite growth-retarding influences early in life such as poor infant feeding and high morbidity , were able to catch-up later. The recovery from stunting model suggests that those who recovered had greater growth potential at birth, evidenced by taller maternal stature, higher birth length and low ponderal index.

In later childhood, with improvements in socioeconomic conditions and diet, these children show catch-up in linear growth to more closely approximate their growth potential. Other children appear to have more limited growth potential from birth onward. This lower growth potential is in evidence among full-term LBW infants, those with an adequate ponderal index evidence of proportionate intrauterine growth restriction and those with intergenerational or genetic effects represented by short maternal stature.

When coupled with poor growth during the first 2 y of life, this results in the lowest likelihood of later catch-up growth. The absence of strong effects of prematurity may reflect the birth-weight distribution among surviving preterm infants, only 12 of whom weighed less than 2, g at birth. The combination of pre- and postnatal growth retardation is most likely the result of a continuum of adverse environmental factors from the prenatal period through infancy.

In a previous analysis of determinants of stunting in the CLHNS sample, we found that low birth weight, lack of breast-feeding, early introduction of weaning foods and increased diarrheal morbidity increased the incidence of stunting in the first year of life Adair and Guilkey These findings emphasize the importance of attention to maternal nutrition and health during pregnancy, and to optimal feeding and preventive health practices during infancy.

The lack of persistent effects of birth characteristics in the residual model most likely reflects the fact that this analysis characterizes catch-up growth without respect to stunting status. Birth characteristics may play a greater role in recovery from stunting, largely because they are so important as determinants of early stunting.

Mean household income levels rose accounting for the effects of inflation , more households acquired electricity and piped water, and the average number of common assets increased.

The effects of such improvements on child health are likely to operate through improved nutrition and decreased morbidity from infectious diseases. We assessed only one dimension of change in nutrition energy intake , but found that between age 2 and 8. The lack of a significant effect of increased energy intake on recovery from stunting or on height increments from age 8.

Other measures of dietary quality were not taken into account in the present analysis. A weakness of the study is the lack of dietary and morbidity data during the intervals from ages 2 to 8.

In general, when socioeconomic status improves, children grow more. The stronger effect of assets vs. The effects of increased assets were restricted to households with higher initial assets in the recovery from stunting model, but in the residual model, acquisition of assets was a stronger determinant of higher than expected growth among households with lower initial assets.

This suggests a possible threshold effect, with greater improvements needed for a child to recover from stunting. The effect of birth order and younger siblings most likely represents competition for limited resources within the household. At all ages, first-born children have higher mean HAZ than children of higher birth order, and within CLHNS families, firstborns are taller and have higher IQ scores than their next younger sibling Adair When household income and assets are held constant, having more siblings is likely to mean that each child gets less of the needed resources, including food, nurturing and health care.

This result emphasizes the importance of family planning and reduced family size as a means to improve child growth. Results from several intervention studies demonstrate the potential for catch-up growth in children, but also point to the importance of sustained intervention. Perez-Escamilla et al. However, they found that improvements in growth of Cali, Colombia, children were not sustained once the intervention ceased. Similarly, Walker et al.

Results from the Cebu study suggest that more comprehensive, sustainable improvements in socioeconomic status may contribute to improved child growth. The Cebu study leaves important questions unanswered about the ultimate effects of catch-up growth on adult height. Further follow-up of these children is necessary to document what happens during the adolescent growth spurt. It remains to be seen whether there will be further improvements in growth during adolescence. In other settings, researchers observed a prolonged growth spurt, resulting in a reduction of the adult height deficit Cameron and Kgamphe This is possible since pubertal delay provides an opportunity for more catch-up growth prior to skeletal maturity.

However, Martorell et al. There is evidence that maturation is delayed in Cebu sample girls relative to U. Only 1. In contrast, based on data from the U. The HAZ scores of U. The later maturing Cebu girls show a deviation in height, even from the WHO 10 th percentile at age 11 y. Among Cebu girls with earlier menarche, there is more apparent catch-up growth. Early menarche was a very strong determinant of greater than expected growth in height in the residual model.

Further follow-up of these earlier maturing girls to determine final adult height will be of particular interest. In summary, this community-based nonintervention study demonstrates a considerable degree of catch-up growth from age 2 y to later childhood in a cohort of Filipino children.

The potential for catch-up growth is greatest among children with increased growth potential, marked by taller mothers, longer length and lower ponderal index at birth, and less severe stunting during early infancy.

Children at greatest risk of long-term height deficits are LBW infants who are also severely stunted during infancy. The persistent effects on later childhood growth of birth characteristics and growth during infancy strongly support optimal maternal health and nutrition before and during pregnancy as well as optimal infant feeding and health-care practices.

The demonstrated potential for catch-up growth in later childhood emphasizes the importance of sustained attention to the health and nutrition of the older child. Improvements in maternal education, family planning and income-earning opportunities are important social changes that would ultimately support this goal.

This paper was presented at Experimental Biology Adair, L. Adair , L. Human Biology 1 : — Google Scholar. Schell , L. Smith , M. Bilsborough , A. Google Preview. Ashworth , A. Ballard , J. Journal of Pediatrics 95 : — Cameron , N. South African Med. Esrey , S. Florentino , R. Golden , M. Hamill , P. Hoffman , H. Survey 29 9 : — Lubchenco , L. Pediatrics 37 : — Martorell , R. Falkner , F. Tanner , J. Human growth: a comprehensive treatise, Vol.

Annales Nestle 48 : 85 — Perez-Escamilla , R. Satyanarayana , K. Annals Human Biol 16 : — StataCorp Stata Statistical Software. Release 5. Faulkner , F. Human growth: a comprehensive treatise Plenum Press New York. Vella , V. Walker , S. WHO Physical status: the use and interpretation of anthropometry. WHO , Geneva. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Sign In or Create an Account. Sign In. Advanced Search. Search Menu. Article Navigation. Close mobile search navigation Article Navigation. Volume Article Contents Abstract. Adair Linda S. I pretended to be sleeping during nap time sometimes though because I hated taking naps Sorry mom and dad!

As for the drinking milk part, to this day I still get teased by some of my friends to drink it. Well, let me tell you that I drank milk every time, but look where I am now—still short. Stretching to increase my height was something that I learned later on in life. Good for her though! Many parents believed that Star Margarine would help their children grow taller because of how the spread is advertised that way.

And so, like any Filipino parent out there, they religiously incorporated star margarine in a lot of dishes, especially rice! I really doubt the effectivity of this, but nonetheless I loved the taste of margarine with rice.