Sex Differences in the Impact of Thinness, Overweight, Obesity, and Parental Height on Adolescent Height

Purpose The secular trend of increasing weight may lead to a decline in height gain compared with the genetic height potential. The impact of weight on height in healthy male and female adolescents compared with their genetic height was assessed. Methods Height and weight were measured in Israeli adolescent military recrutees aged 16–19 years between 1967 and 2013. The study population comprised 355,229 recrutees for whom parental height measurements were documented. Subjects were classified into four body mass index percentile groups according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention body mass index percentiles for age and sex:<5th (underweight), 5th–49th (low-normal), 50th–84th (high-normal), and ≥85th (overweight-obese). Short stature was defined as height ≤ third percentile and tall stature as height ≥ 90th percentile for age and sex. Results Overweight-obese females had a 73% increased risk for short stature (odds ratio [OR]: 1.73, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.51–1.97, p <.001). Conversely, underweight females had a 56% lower risk of short stature (OR:.44, 95% CI =.28–.70, p =.001) and a twofold increased risk for being tall (OR: 2.08, 95% CI = 1.86–2.32, p <.001). Overweight-obese males had a 23% increased risk of being short (OR: 1.23, 95% CI = 1.10–1.37, p <.001). Underweight females were on average 4.1 cm taller than their mid-parental height. Conclusions Overweight-obese males and females had an increased risk of being short, and underweight females were significantly taller compared with their genetic height. The significantly increased height among underweight healthy females may reflect a potential loss of height gain in overweight-obese females.