Most research shows that while it's tough being short in grade school, the outcomes of shorter children are no different than their taller peers in adulthood. Height is largely determined by genetics, and hormones secreted by the pituitary gland - a pea-size organ in the brain - are responsible for growth.
The average American adult male is 5 feet 9 1/2 inches tall and the average woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parents often worry about the child's emotional health since they are sometimes teased for being shorter and looking younger than their peers." "Children are perceived to be at a disadvantage socially and athletically if they are short. "Overall, tall is considered 'better' than short," Rossi told. Rossi, clinical associate professor for pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, the number of parents seeking growth hormones for their short, but healthy, children is on the rise. "You have to assume that parents want to do the best for their kids, but the best of parental love and the desire of a doctor to fix things is a huge industry."Īccording to Dr. "The treatment of height turns out to be a cautionary tale," she told.
"We are actually making kids who are now considered healthy sick," said Susan Cohen, co-author of the new book, " Normal at Any Cost." These treatments come at a cost - some estimate $35,000 an inch - and when used in higher doses can shorten life-span by predisposing children to diabetes, scoliosis and cancer, according to some studies. These synthetic hormones have been a boon for children who are at the bottom of the growth curve, whose predicted heights would never exceed 5 feet 3 inches for boys and 4 feet 11 inches for girls.īut with a society that is more comfortable with medicating children, the demand has opened a Pandora's box for parents of so-called "designer children" who view being short as a stumbling block to success in life. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of rGH for children with idiopathic - or unexplained - short stature, without a diagnosed metabolic hormone deficiency. "He was willing to pay more than $45,000 a year, and didn't even bat an eyelash."ĭesrosiers said he even gets requests for growth hormone from "Jolly Green Giant" families, where children are likely to be tall. "He wanted to make his kid big, and he thinks he's going to walk out with the shots," said Desrosiers, director of pediatric endocrinology at Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando. Just last week, the father of a young baseball player - a 14-year-old who was already 5 feet 6 inches tall - expected Desrosiers to prescribe recombinant growth hormone (rGH) to add height to his budding athlete. Desrosiers turns these patients away, but he says the requests still come.