are your kids bigger than you?

[davestlouis]

I had a conversation with harpplayergene recently, and he noted that large shoes are difficult to find in thrift stores, or deadstock. I presume that is because nobody wore such large sizes a generation or two ago. I think I'm a fairly big guy...6ft tall, 225Lbs, size 12 shoe, 18 inch neck.

I had to go shoe shopping with one of my 12 year old sons the other night, and he wears a 12D shoe already. He's rail-thin but close to 6 ft tall already.

My 16 year old is 6ft, 250, wears a 14EEE, my 17 year old daughter is the "short" one of the girls, and she's 5ft11 inches tall. My 21 year old daughter is well over 6ft.

Where did these giants come from? Is each generation getting bigger than the last? Where will it stop?

 

[Puzzicato]

I'm shorter than my mother but taller than my father. But you are right, the next generation is HUGE. I have 2 nieces (one blood, one by marriage) who are over 6' tall and my nephew is 6'5" and hasn't stopped yet (he's 21, hopefully he will stop soon!). Hormones in the chicken? [huh]

 

[Miss sofia]

My son is already a couple of inches taller than me at the age of 11, i'm 5' 3" and he wears the same size shoes as me for the moment, which is handy as we have communal Keds and wellies hurrah! (Luckily he is not at that hormonal, whiffy boy stage yet, so the shoes are perfectly safe to wear)!

 

[Yeps]

As one of the kids... my mom is 5'9" and my dad is 6'1". I am 6'6"ish and 180 and I am the small one. My big brother is 6'8" and 225 or 230. Something like that.

 

[HepKitty]

my kids are 9 but I'm quite sure both will be taller than me. it won't be much of a challenge since I'm not quite 5'2"

 

[Levallois]

I don't know what's causing it but every kid that I know is taller than at least one of their parents. My son is 6'2" - an inch taller than me - and my daughter is 5'7" which is one inch taller than her mom. Strangely, however, my daughter is always complaining about how short the guys are that she meets. Her last boyfriend was 6'3" and now she can't wear heels out so as not to tower over her shorter dates? The internet has the average male height in the USA for 20-39 years of age at 5' 10 1/2."

 

[Foofoogal]

Yes, definitely. I was worried when they were small they would not be though but they are.
Matured a lot faster also as in puberty.
I definitely think something is in the food.

 

[Paisley]

In the late 1800s, the tallest people in the world were equestrian Indians of the Great Plains. Their average height: 5'-8."

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/tallind.htm

Re: food, antibiotics are fed to livestock to make them grow bigger. A lot of the food an animal consumes is ingested by bacteria in their GI tract. One theory is that without the bacteria to feed, they grow bigger--but not necessarily healthier.

http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/46/5/1447

Here's an abstract of an article about the hypothesis that antibiotic pollution has made us bigger:

http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(04)00465-7/abstract

I'm shorter than both my biological parents. I don't know if there was much antibiotic or hormones in milk when I was a kid, but I hated milk as much as I hated polyester. *yucky* It was tea for me.

 

[Diamondback]

I drew the sawed-off card as well--2" shorter than my mother under normal conditions and well shorter than "the sperm donor" who was around 6', but I also pack a full sixth less total weight; between luck and exercise, I've managed to hold the line at mere "heavy" as opposed to "morbidly obese". (I mean, taking male/female physiological differences into account, when someone's thigh is almost as thick as your torso at about the same height, that's a Red Flag... in her case, the combination of lazy slob and deluded workaholic beyond all reason or logic only aggravate the problem.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

The antibiotic angle is very interesting. Nobody on either side of my family has ever been over six feet tall, going back as many generations as we can document -- with the exception of my brother, who is six-four.

My generation was the first in the family to have antibiotics widely available -- but my sister and I both went to an elderly doctor who didn't believe in them unless absolutely necessary, and then only in small small doses. I'm five-six and she's five-four. We're both taller than our mother, but not abnormally so. My brother went to a modern-era doctor who dosed him full of antibiotics at the slightest provocation -- and he towers over everyone in the family, by far. Coincidence? I dunno, but it's something I'd never thought about until now.

 

[Foofoogal]

Wow Lizzie. From your TV appearance i could of sworn you were at least 5'8. You were sitting down though. Funny.
Loved it.

 

[HepKitty]

a lot of livestock is also fed growth hormones for higher yields. I try to avoid anything treated w/ hormones and/or antibiotics (milk, cheese, meat) but the only option to avoid everything is to be vegan. no thank you

my children's paternal great grandfather was about 6'5" but their grandfather is only 5'8". how did that happen?

 

[Big Man]

I come from a long line of tall/big people. I'm 6' 6" and around 360 lbs, and wear a 14 EEE shoe. My 31 year-old son is about 6' 2" and 250 lbs. My 28 year-old son is 6' 4" and maybe 175 lbs soaking wet with a rock in his pocket. Both girls, 21 and 16 years old, are around 5' 8". None of my children got "my feet", but did come close (boys wear an 11 or 12, girls have big feet, too).

My Dad was 6' 6" and 320 lbs, and my granddad was around 6' tall. I even have a pension file from my fourth great grandfather who was in the Revolution, and he was listed as being 6' 2" and of "heavy build".

 

[HHISIII]

My mom is 5'9" and my dad is 5'10" At his peak, my dad was ~185lbs, then he started growing in the wrong direction.

I'm 6'0" (unless I've been doing a lot of squats and the like, I'll actually shrink nearly an inch when I'm going heavy) 265-270 and still meet Army body fat standards. The other males in my family tend to have grown the wrong direction or be rail thin. I am, by far, the strongest in the family, but I'm the second shortest male in my generation. Two of my cousins are 6'2". All of my uncles are ~5'9"-10".

 

[Big_e]

I have no children. My nieces and nephews are already taller than me. I cradled them in my arms as little babies not too long ago!
Ernest

 

[Sunny]

Another one of the kids speaking up here. I come of Tall and Extra-Tall stock on my mother's and father's sides, respectively. I have three brothers, and only one of the four of us even matches the previous generations' heights.

I and two of my brothers (Nos. 1 &3) clearly get the merely Tall genes from my mother's family.

Mother's the shorty, at 5'7". Her sisters are 5'10" and 5'11"; my grandmother is 5'8".
I am 5'9". Taller than my mother and grandmother, but both aunts are taller than me.
Her one brother is 6'3"; I think her father was right at 6'. Brothers 1 & 3 are both 6'2", shorter (and slimmer) than our uncle.


Brother No. 2 got the Extra Tall genes from dad.

Dad's the tall one in his family, at 6'8". His brother was 6'6". His father was the shorty, at 6'1". His grandfather was 6'6" or 6'7", easily - and he was a 1920s West Point graduate. His one sister is 6'1".
Brother No. 2 is also 6'8". (His waist size just went up 1/4", as they discovered when order his repro G.I. trousers: Waist 33 [and 1/4"!], inseam 39.)


Just FWIW, a friend of mine has a great (?x) grandmother from the mid 1800s who was over 6' tall. My friend is, I think 5'6".


Conclusion: There have always been tall people, no matter what the average is. And tall does not always equal big!

 

[vintage_jayhawk]

Being tall is a recent development in my family as well. My paternal grandmother was 5'1" (before the shrinking began) and my grandfather was 5'10". But then my father is 6'2" [huh]
My mother's parents were 5'3" and 5'9", respectively, and she's 5'5".
So, my 5'5" and 6'2" parents had three kids - 2 girls 5'10" and 5'11" (me) and one boy 6'3". At this rate my children will be giants lol

 

[Doctor Strange]

NO!

My kids are both about the same height, or even shorter, if anything. (And of course, they weigh much less than their equal-height fiftysomething parents!)

My son (19) is nearly eye-to-eye with me at just 5'8".

And my daughter (17) is nearly eye-to-eye with her mom (aka my ex) at a petite 5' even.

So I don't really see much evidence of a general trend for kids to be taller than their parents - at least, not in my nuclear family...

 

[Spitfire]

No.
Two sons. First one 32 - second one 22 and none of them are as tall as I am.
But I am also pretty tall. (1,92 m.)
But I reckon they will be, when I start to "shrink" with old age.

 

[Puzzicato]

Brother No. 2 is also 6'8". (His waist size just went up 1/4", as they discovered when order his repro G.I. trousers: Waist 33 [and 1/4"!], inseam 39.)

Holy snakes - aren't you worried the poor boy will snap in half? So slim and so tall!