“Look at your son. He’s so tall and admirable! Meanwhile I have to pay for those inconceivable Growth Hormone Injections just for my son to sleep late and make it futile.” This is a nag every student experiences once in their lives. Height is a sensitive factor for students nowadays, whether it’s because of pleasing aesthetics or to have an advantage when playing a sport. However, as students advance to higher grades, it engenders lack of sleep due to the amount and complexity of materials students are required to comprehend. There are many components impacting height growth, but the three profound factors are genetics, nutrition, and quality of sleep. 

True foolishness is not knowing that genetics play a dominant role in height. It’s a well known fact that having tall parents indicates that the offspring will be tall too. One example that genetics influence height would be a method using parents’ height to find out the progeny’s expected height.  Most hospitals or even individuals nowadays use the mid-parental height method: add the parents’ heights together, add 5 inches (13cm) for a boy or subtract 5 inches (13cm) for a girl, and then divide by 2. To  dive deeper into the relationship between height and genetics, Harvard has launched a study. The team (GIANT consortium) analyzed DNA from 5.4 million people to identify genetic variants associated with human height. They found over 12,000 common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that influence height; for individuals of European ancestry, these variants explain about 40% of the variation in height. For non-European ancestries the figure is more than 10%-20% at present. 

People underestimate the impact nutrition can have on height growth. Although it’s not as influential as genetics, according to Scientific American, maximizing the benefits can approximately aid 20% ~40% of height growth. The reason why nutrition is so important in the context of height growth is because it provides essential building blocks the body needs to grow and develop properly. Minerals like protein which builds, repairs, and maintains tissues, as well as numerous bodily enzymes and hormones, calcium, which strengthens bone structure, vitamin D, which helps keep muscles and brain cells working, zinc, which helps wound healing, cell growth and metabolism, and finally, iron, which helps over health all help bones lengthen and strengthen. When malnutrition occurs, it causes a stunt to the person’s physical but also mental development. People suffering from stunting may never attain their full potential height and their brains may never develop to their full cognitive potential.  

The reason why you feel tired after waking up from a long sleep is because of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. REM sleep is one of the deepest stages of the sleep cycle, where the brain becomes active while the body remains still. During this stage, the pituitary gland releases growth hormone, which travels through the bloodstream to stimulate the growth of bones, muscles, and tissues. This hormone helps the body lengthen the long bones in the legs and arms, especially during childhood and adolescence. Without enough deep or REM sleep, the release of this hormone becomes limited, and this is why the quality of sleep matters.

In conclusion, height is not merely determined by chance. It results from numerous factors, representatively genetics, nutrition, and quality sleep. Although we cannot control our DNA, we can influence the other two factors. The next time someone complains about being short, rather than seeking shortcuts like growth hormone injections, they should focus on balancing these three main pillars.