The Unsolved Mysteries of My Stunted Height

[BatmanBegins]

Abstract: I’ve been questioning it my whole life. I just wanted to know how much I might have lost and if there’s something I could have done to change it. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate every factor that could possibly harm my growth. Hopefully, by understanding it better, it can bring some peace to my mind and then I can move on to the next chapter of my life which is dealing with my current height and finding a cure for it, be it temporary or permanent.

Stats:

Age 15 : 162cm / 5’3.75”

Age 16 : 164cm / 5’4.5”

Final Height : 167cm / 5’5.75” (Morning Height : 168.5cm / 5’6.25)

Father’s Height : 175cm / 5’9” (Note : Actually I never measured him, it’s possible that he was taller when he was young)

Mother’s Height : 158cm / 5’2”

Sister I’s Height : 166cm / 5’5.5”

Sister II’s Height : 164cm / 5’4.5”

What I Fucked Up​

• Sleep Deprivation

It’s the primary factor that all this time I’ve believed has damaged my growth the most. I slept on average 2 hours a night from the age of 10-18. Actually I don’t remember when it started exactly, it could have been even before that. I admit that part of it was my own doing. I often chose to stay up watching football, tv, playing games or listening to radio because I just like to be alone at night. But mostly it’s due to school. Life was hard back then to the point where I had to wake up at 5AM every morning because school started so early. I was always afraid to wake up in the morning and a lot of times I stayed up to study. I might have taken a nap here and there after school. Sometimes it could be 3-4 hours of a nap. But I don’t remember how consistent it was. I remember there were times where I didn’t sleep at all and just went straight to school or just slept for 1 hour. I remember once during junior high school, I felt so grateful because I managed to get 4 hours of sleep the previous night. Except during holidays, I never once woke up voluntarily. I was always forced to.

Scientific theory : Our body produces growth hormone during deep sleep. That’s why it’s commonly believed that sleep is needed to grow. But there has been an argument that our body will still compensate by producing the HG during the day if we didn’t sleep.

The reality is that I know a few people in real life who slept more than average people and ended up a lot taller that he’s supposed to.

If I had a time machine : I would definitely quit school at 5th grade or at the very least attend homeschool. Because there was no way I could have slept sufficiently and lived stress-free while attending the same schools I did. But is that even realistic? There was no way my younger self could have known the things I know today. I just listened to my parents and tried my best, did whatever it took to survive in school believing it was necessary. In the end, I’d just blame my parents as I always did all my life. I just wish they acted wiser by placing less importance on my grades and more on my well-being and growth.

• Depression

It’s the second biggest factor that might have contributed to the stunting of my height and it’s connected to my sleep deprivation. I remember quite well that my depression started officially in the 5th grade at the age of 10 because that’s when things started to go down. Before that I was relatively a happy normal kid. Then I had to deal with both academic pressure and social pressure (aka bullies). It’s no doubt that I was depressed more than most kids. But the question is how much impact it could have had on my growth.

Scientific theory : When we are depressed, our body produces stress hormone called cortisol which could inhibit growth hormone. There was a study that shows that children whose parents are divorced are shorter than average.

If I had a time machine : I mean who wants to be depressed, right? But quitting school was the only way to solve this and my parents weren’t about to let that happen.

• Malnutrition

I originally believed that it could play a huge factor too. My diet was not by any means perfect. I mostly ate a lot of rice with minimum portion of meat/fish/poultry and I didn’t like milk that much. But I liked Milo which has calcium. I liked eggs (although not the yolk), sausages and nuggets. And it couldn’t be that bad after all. Once in a while, usually in the weekend, my parents would take me to dinner outside where I must have had decent stuffs. Sometimes I had steaks. Sometimes we went for buffet where I could overeat to the point of vomitting. And there were lots of occasions such as family gatherings, birthday parties, social events. Of course not everyday that I had such privilege. When I bought meals in the school canteen, for instance, I don’t think it gave that much either. And for this reason, I leave open the possibility of my diet stunting my height. I did not practice a healthy diet consistently and didn’t drink 6 gallons of milk everyday.

If I had a time machine : I would definitely eat good stuffs and drink milk more consistently. But would you expect a kid to have this level of awareness and discipline?

• Masturbation

Actually I only started doing it at the age of 15.5. What’s funny is that, in High School, I used to think it’s the number 1 cause for my short height.

Scientific theory : Sperm is made of protein. So when we masturbate, we waste the protein which otherwise could be used for our body to grow. Howover, most sources I came across on the internet dismiss this theory.

But I guess we’ll never know now, won’t we? At least, I started pretty late. I should have been close to my maximum potential already at 15.5.

• Illness

Apart from dengue fever once when I was like 5 or so, I mostly just got sore throat and fever from time to time and took lots of antibiotics.

And when I was 19, I discovered that I had a nasal polyp which caused my difficulty of breathing. I didn’t know how long it’s been there, but it might have always been there.

What I Got Right​

• Caffeine Free

So in an attempt to make myself feel better, I want to remind myself that I at least got a few things right. I don’t believe I was a regular coffee drinker back then. My aunt took me to Starbucks once in a while. But that was it. Most likely won’t be enough to cause any stunting.

• Alcohol, Smoking, Drugs Free

I drank a few cans of beers and smoked a few cigarettes when I was 16, but it was very rare. I never did drugs in my life. I read that Al Pacino and Mark Wahlberg did all these from an early age which might be the reason why they both ended up short.

• Physical Activity

I was quite physically active back then, more than a lot of kids anyway. I did basketball, soccer, taekwondo during elementary school and high school eventhough not to the point where I became a school player. I often went swimming when I was younger.

• Never broken a bone

During my school days, it wasn’t unusual to see a kid with a hand covered in bandages due to bone fracture. However, I can safely say that it never happened to me.

• Never had a major surgery

I’ve heard some people say that it can mess up with growth too. But fortunately, I never had any.

• Other physical flaw till the age of 15.5

Perhaps, this is the biggest excuse I have for failing my height. I actually had another physical flaw that became a major issue during my childhood and teenage years (which actually didn’t have to be) until I had it fixed at age 15.5. I believe this is the main reason why I never had a chance to pay much attention to my height. Because my height wasn’t the main reason I was bullied, eventhough my unintimidating height encouraged people to do so. But I would have to be a lot bigger than I was for them to really fear me. Anyway, once I fixed it. I took the time to enjoy being a normal kid for the first time in my life and didn’t just be conscious about my height right off the bat. In a way, I feel that my lack of height can be interpreted as a symbol that always reminds me of the beginning of my life, where I came from.

• Trying to catch up at the age of 16.5

I remember approaching the end of 2009, I started to give my height a serious attention. I went to a growth taller clinic in my city and had my growth plates checked. I was so devastated to find out that they were almost closed and that I had only 6-9 months left to grow. The first time, I was measured at 164.3cm with the clinic machine and 164.7 or so after 2 months of treatment. Since then, I must have tried to sleep more than normally whenever I could. It wasn’t, by any means, sufficient. But if I used to just sleep 1-2 hours a night previously, now I might have managed to get 3-4 hours and during holidays, I would sleep till afternoon. I also took lots of supplements and tried a few other growth taller devices. Then after I quit school at 17.5, I must have slept a lot more.

Anyway, approaching the end of 2011, at 18.75, 2 years after my first visit to the clinic, I went back to the same clinic to measure myself with the exact same machine. I was 166.5. So that means I grew about 2cm in 2 years between age 16.5-18.75. After that, I’ve been regularly measured at 167cm. I didn’t know if I grew another 0.5cm after almost 19 or it’s due to different machines or my posture wasn’t perfect that day.

On one hand, I felt really grateful that my body managed to grew the significant 2.5cm at the very last minute. But on the other hand, sometimes it feels that my body was trying to catch up and make up for the previous bad years, but just wasn’t given enough time to reach its maximum.

• Body Proportions

It’s also one of the things that were always out of my control. But interestingly enough, the size of my cranium, hands, feet, waist are all small as well, thus making them appropriate for my height. My arms and fingers length are even shorter than my sisters’. So I guess these are all possibly indications that I was never going to be big and that my height was not stunted. There are 2 theories. One being, our body parts grow at different rates. So for instance, the cranium might reach maturity much earlier than height. The other being, every body part might get stunted in harmony. I would need to dive deeper into this later.

• I was never big

I was particularly skinny, but I didn’t feel very short during elementary school. Eventhough I do remember worrying about it a few times during kindergarten and elementary school. However, I was older than most kids of the same grade because my birthday is in January. So I was always a couple of months or even a year ahead of everyone in terms of growth. I also just remember that I did feel short since the beginning of Junior High School. Many people were already taller than me by that time.

Conclusion​

I think it’s pretty unrealistic to hope that I did everything right from the beginning without any prior knowledge regarding the significance of height. Without knowing the things I know now, I wouldn’t have the motivation to be tall and there was no way I could have known everything back then being born in this family unless my current self unless I can hop into a time machine and go back in time and get back into my 5-year-old body. And I don’t expect my parents to be experts in this field either. The only thing that I regret mostly was how my parents could place such an importance on school and neglect my well-being and growth. I mean it would be a lot wiser if they just didn’t give a shit about any of those. I did everything I could to survive in school while being oppressed for years and worse, I tried to perform well academically, thus often sacrificing my sleep even more than I was going to. All that for nothing. Of course, I don’t know exactly how much my sleep deprivation and depression actually damaged my growth. But we do know that even most doctors and scientist believe in the correlation between sleep and growth. It’s one thing when you stunted your growth through starvation because your family is so poor and there’s nothing you could do about it, but it’s another thing when you stunted your growth because you chose to suffer unnecessarily and everyone around you advocated that. Even those who stunted their growth by smoking, at least, they got the pleasure from doing so.

 

[sytyl]

dn read but good first post tbh

 

[godirl]

No one is reading all that bruh
put a TLDR

 

[Deleted member 6488]

 

[Deleted member 4209]

welcome greycel! good first post!

 

[sytyl]

give me sister II's number tbh

 

[Deleted member 6400]

strong first post,bruce.

 

[Mexicanboi]

Cope, is all about genetics, the genetic recombination gave you the genes for your mom's height

 

[Beetlejuice]

Barely taller than your sisters,brutal

 

[W0KESTMOTHF]

Your parents are very short , you didn't stunt your growth it's all genetic

 

[BatmanBegins]

dn read but good first post tbh

No one is reading all that bruh
put a TLDR

Please read it.

welcome greycel! good first post!

strong first post,bruce.

Thanks brah

Cope, is all about genetics, the genetic recombination gave you the genes for your mom's height

I'm not really convinced. Most of guys are taller than their fathers and tower over their sisters no matter how short their mothers are.

Barely taller than your sisters,brutal

I know very well.

Your parents are very short , you didn't stunt your growth it's all genetic

Do you really think that sleeping 0-2 hours every night and constantly being depressed from the age of 10-18 didn't have any impact on my final adult height?

 

[Deleted member 1338]

It's your DNA code fagget there's nothing you can do about it, just do us a favor and rope asap.

 

[Deleted member 6867]

that would make you around 27 years old now, what are your plans now and are you chinese?

 

[kangarooking]

My parents are the same height as yours and I averaged 5 hrs of sleep during 10th and 11th grade. Still grew 7in during those years and ended up at 6’3”

 

[BatmanBegins]

that would make you around 27 years old now, what are your plans now and are you chinese?

Yes, I've been struggling over it for 11 years.

I have already ruled out limb lengthening. So my plans are:

1. I have deliberately isolated myself from society to spare myself pain. Since I am no longer part of the society, then I have no reasons to feel inadequate no more. I never had any friends to begin with, anyway.

2. However, I will still go out for the sake of meeting girls and getting laid once in a while. I wear lifts that put me at a reasonable height (for an Asian) of 171cm and claim this number my real barefoot height. I also have modified all my clothes to give me taller impression.

3. I want to share my hatred for taller ethnic men. I want to beat them in every way and make sure that the only advantage they will have over me is a couple of inches.

3. I'd still like to find out how much my growth was damaged.

4. I'm trying to crack the code to the only other way besides LL to increase height after growth plate fusion. Mostly, through the manipulation of spine length.

5. I'm waiting for a possible safer and superior alternative to distraction osteogenesis (aka LL).

There is nothing else I can do at the moment.

My parents are the same height as yours and I averaged 5 hrs of sleep during 10th and 11th grade. Still grew 7in during those years and ended up at 6’3”

5 hours is far from bad enough to stunt your height, especially during the period where your growth is almost done. I averaged 2 hours from age 10-18.

 

[Deleted member 1588]

Stop coping brah i also used to think i stunted my growth massively but its not possible tbh.

Max you could stunt your growth is maybe one inch or max 2 inches if you ate less than 500 calories a day tbh.

I ate like shit during puberty was barely 100lbs and my brother was always at a healthy weight.
Final result my brother is maybe one inch talller than me and slightly bigger frame

 

[turkproducer]

i think about the exact same thing for me as well bro. it’s such a shit feeling

 

[stuckneworleans]

I have deliberately isolated myself from society to spare myself pain. Since I am no longer part of the society, then I have no reasons to feel inadequate no more. I never had any friends to begin with, anyway.

this is me

 

[Squirtoutmabooty]

Not this guy again

 

[BatmanBegins]

Stop coping brah i also used to think i stunted my growth massively but its not possible tbh.

Max you could stunt your growth is maybe one inch or max 2 inches if you ate less than 500 calories a day tbh.

I ate like shit during puberty was barely 100lbs and my brother was always at a healthy weight.
Final result my brother is maybe one inch talller than me and slightly bigger frame

2" is quite massive actually. And there is no guarantee we could only stunted that much.

i think about the exact same thing for me as well bro. it’s such a shit feeling

this is me

Now there is a reason why we all ended up here.

 

[klamus]

Galactic cope. I dno how you can be this stupid To continue this shit for years. At 16 years old I was wise enough To sleep 9-10 hours To heightmaxx and this was wothout any autistic looksmaxx forums. I was 5'10 when I decided To sleepmaxx

You dont have To be 170 iq galaxy brain To know that sleep is essential

 

[Deleted member 11604]

Greycelslivesmatter you fucking colorcist.

 

[RAITEIII]

I also stunted tbh was meant be 9 inches chad.

 

[𝔻𝔸𝕎ℕ 𝕆𝔽 𝕂ℍ𝔸L]

Abstract: I’ve been questioning it my whole life. I just wanted to know how much I might have lost and if there’s something I could have done to change it. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate every factor that could possibly harm my growth. Hopefully, by understanding it better, it can bring some peace to my mind and then I can move on to the next chapter of my life which is dealing with my current height and finding a cure for it, be it temporary or permanent.

Stats:

Age 15 : 162cm / 5’3.75”

Age 16 : 164cm / 5’4.5”

Final Height : 167cm / 5’5.75” (Morning Height : 168.5cm / 5’6.25)

Father’s Height : 175cm / 5’9” (Note : Actually I never measured him, it’s possible that he was taller when he was young)

Mother’s Height : 158cm / 5’2”

Sister I’s Height : 166cm / 5’5.5”

Sister II’s Height : 164cm / 5’4.5”

What I Fucked Up​

• Sleep Deprivation

It’s the primary factor that all this time I’ve believed has damaged my growth the most. I slept on average 2 hours a night from the age of 10-18. Actually I don’t remember when it started exactly, it could have been even before that. I admit that part of it was my own doing. I often chose to stay up watching football, tv, playing games or listening to radio because I just like to be alone at night. But mostly it’s due to school. Life was hard back then to the point where I had to wake up at 5AM every morning because school started so early. I was always afraid to wake up in the morning and a lot of times I stayed up to study. I might have taken a nap here and there after school. Sometimes it could be 3-4 hours of a nap. But I don’t remember how consistent it was. I remember there were times where I didn’t sleep at all and just went straight to school or just slept for 1 hour. I remember once during junior high school, I felt so grateful because I managed to get 4 hours of sleep the previous night. Except during holidays, I never once woke up voluntarily. I was always forced to.

Scientific theory : Our body produces growth hormone during deep sleep. That’s why it’s commonly believed that sleep is needed to grow. But there has been an argument that our body will still compensate by producing the HG during the day if we didn’t sleep.

The reality is that I know a few people in real life who slept more than average people and ended up a lot taller that he’s supposed to.

If I had a time machine : I would definitely quit school at 5th grade or at the very least attend homeschool. Because there was no way I could have slept sufficiently and lived stress-free while attending the same schools I did. But is that even realistic? There was no way my younger self could have known the things I know today. I just listened to my parents and tried my best, did whatever it took to survive in school believing it was necessary. In the end, I’d just blame my parents as I always did all my life. I just wish they acted wiser by placing less importance on my grades and more on my well-being and growth.

• Depression

It’s the second biggest factor that might have contributed to the stunting of my height and it’s connected to my sleep deprivation. I remember quite well that my depression started officially in the 5th grade at the age of 10 because that’s when things started to go down. Before that I was relatively a happy normal kid. Then I had to deal with both academic pressure and social pressure (aka bullies). It’s no doubt that I was depressed more than most kids. But the question is how much impact it could have had on my growth.

Scientific theory : When we are depressed, our body produces stress hormone called cortisol which could inhibit growth hormone. There was a study that shows that children whose parents are divorced are shorter than average.

If I had a time machine : I mean who wants to be depressed, right? But quitting school was the only way to solve this and my parents weren’t about to let that happen.

• Malnutrition

I originally believed that it could play a huge factor too. My diet was not by any means perfect. I mostly ate a lot of rice with minimum portion of meat/fish/poultry and I didn’t like milk that much. But I liked Milo which has calcium. I liked eggs (although not the yolk), sausages and nuggets. And it couldn’t be that bad after all. Once in a while, usually in the weekend, my parents would take me to dinner outside where I must have had decent stuffs. Sometimes I had steaks. Sometimes we went for buffet where I could overeat to the point of vomitting. And there were lots of occasions such as family gatherings, birthday parties, social events. Of course not everyday that I had such privilege. When I bought meals in the school canteen, for instance, I don’t think it gave that much either. And for this reason, I leave open the possibility of my diet stunting my height. I did not practice a healthy diet consistently and didn’t drink 6 gallons of milk everyday.

If I had a time machine : I would definitely eat good stuffs and drink milk more consistently. But would you expect a kid to have this level of awareness and discipline?

• Masturbation

Actually I only started doing it at the age of 15.5. What’s funny is that, in High School, I used to think it’s the number 1 cause for my short height.

Scientific theory : Sperm is made of protein. So when we masturbate, we waste the protein which otherwise could be used for our body to grow. Howover, most sources I came across on the internet dismiss this theory.

But I guess we’ll never know now, won’t we? At least, I started pretty late. I should have been close to my maximum potential already at 15.5.

• Illness

Apart from dengue fever once when I was like 5 or so, I mostly just got sore throat and fever from time to time and took lots of antibiotics.

And when I was 19, I discovered that I had a nasal polyp which caused my difficulty of breathing. I didn’t know how long it’s been there, but it might have always been there.

What I Got Right​

• Caffeine Free

So in an attempt to make myself feel better, I want to remind myself that I at least got a few things right. I don’t believe I was a regular coffee drinker back then. My aunt took me to Starbucks once in a while. But that was it. Most likely won’t be enough to cause any stunting.

• Alcohol, Smoking, Drugs Free

I drank a few cans of beers and smoked a few cigarettes when I was 16, but it was very rare. I never did drugs in my life. I read that Al Pacino and Mark Wahlberg did all these from an early age which might be the reason why they both ended up short.

• Physical Activity

I was quite physically active back then, more than a lot of kids anyway. I did basketball, soccer, taekwondo during elementary school and high school eventhough not to the point where I became a school player. I often went swimming when I was younger.

• Never broken a bone

During my school days, it wasn’t unusual to see a kid with a hand covered in bandages due to bone fracture. However, I can safely say that it never happened to me.

• Never had a major surgery

I’ve heard some people say that it can mess up with growth too. But fortunately, I never had any.

• Other physical flaw till the age of 15.5

Perhaps, this is the biggest excuse I have for failing my height. I actually had another physical flaw that became a major issue during my childhood and teenage years (which actually didn’t have to be) until I had it fixed at age 15.5. I believe this is the main reason why I never had a chance to pay much attention to my height. Because my height wasn’t the main reason I was bullied, eventhough my unintimidating height encouraged people to do so. But I would have to be a lot bigger than I was for them to really fear me. Anyway, once I fixed it. I took the time to enjoy being a normal kid for the first time in my life and didn’t just be conscious about my height right off the bat. In a way, I feel that my lack of height can be interpreted as a symbol that always reminds me of the beginning of my life, where I came from.

• Trying to catch up at the age of 16.5

I remember approaching the end of 2009, I started to give my height a serious attention. I went to a growth taller clinic in my city and had my growth plates checked. I was so devastated to find out that they were almost closed and that I had only 6-9 months left to grow. The first time, I was measured at 164.3cm with the clinic machine and 164.7 or so after 2 months of treatment. Since then, I must have tried to sleep more than normally whenever I could. It wasn’t, by any means, sufficient. But if I used to just sleep 1-2 hours a night previously, now I might have managed to get 3-4 hours and during holidays, I would sleep till afternoon. I also took lots of supplements and tried a few other growth taller devices. Then after I quit school at 17.5, I must have slept a lot more.

Anyway, approaching the end of 2011, at 18.75, 2 years after my first visit to the clinic, I went back to the same clinic to measure myself with the exact same machine. I was 166.5. So that means I grew about 2cm in 2 years between age 16.5-18.75. After that, I’ve been regularly measured at 167cm. I didn’t know if I grew another 0.5cm after almost 19 or it’s due to different machines or my posture wasn’t perfect that day.

On one hand, I felt really grateful that my body managed to grew the significant 2.5cm at the very last minute. But on the other hand, sometimes it feels that my body was trying to catch up and make up for the previous bad years, but just wasn’t given enough time to reach its maximum.

• Body Proportions

It’s also one of the things that were always out of my control. But interestingly enough, the size of my cranium, hands, feet, waist are all small as well, thus making them appropriate for my height. My arms and fingers length are even shorter than my sisters’. So I guess these are all possibly indications that I was never going to be big and that my height was not stunted. There are 2 theories. One being, our body parts grow at different rates. So for instance, the cranium might reach maturity much earlier than height. The other being, every body part might get stunted in harmony. I would need to dive deeper into this later.

• I was never big

I was particularly skinny, but I didn’t feel very short during elementary school. Eventhough I do remember worrying about it a few times during kindergarten and elementary school. However, I was older than most kids of the same grade because my birthday is in January. So I was always a couple of months or even a year ahead of everyone in terms of growth. I also just remember that I did feel short since the beginning of Junior High School. Many people were already taller than me by that time.

Conclusion​

I think it’s pretty unrealistic to hope that I did everything right from the beginning without any prior knowledge regarding the significance of height. Without knowing the things I know now, I wouldn’t have the motivation to be tall and there was no way I could have known everything back then being born in this family unless my current self unless I can hop into a time machine and go back in time and get back into my 5-year-old body. And I don’t expect my parents to be experts in this field either. The only thing that I regret mostly was how my parents could place such an importance on school and neglect my well-being and growth. I mean it would be a lot wiser if they just didn’t give a shit about any of those. I did everything I could to survive in school while being oppressed for years and worse, I tried to perform well academically, thus often sacrificing my sleep even more than I was going to. All that for nothing. Of course, I don’t know exactly how much my sleep deprivation and depression actually damaged my growth. But we do know that even most doctors and scientist believe in the correlation between sleep and growth. It’s one thing when you stunted your growth through starvation because your family is so poor and there’s nothing you could do about it, but it’s another thing when you stunted your growth because you chose to suffer unnecessarily and everyone around you advocated that. Even those who stunted their growth by smoking, at least, they got the pleasure from doing so.

How r u doing bro? What's ur height rn? Have u gained some inches?

 

[horizontallytall]

@Growth Plate jfl what the fuck hahah