October 18, 2005 Source: University of Saskatchewan:
http://www.usask.ca/events/news/articles/20051018-1.html U of S Team Develops New Method to Predict Adult Height in Children Organization: University of Saskatchewan Communications
Email: communications@usask.ca
Released: Oct. 18, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 2005-10-11-KIN U of S Team Develops New Method to Predict Adult Height in Children Have you ever wondered how tall your child is going to be? University of
Saskatchewan kinesiology researchers have developed a new method to predict
the adult height of healthy children. Research group leader Adam Baxter-Jones, Lauren Sherar, and Bob Mirwald
presented their novel, non-intrusive, inexpensive method of predicting the
adult height of healthy children between the ages of eight and 16 in this
month's issue of the Journal of Pediatrics. "Everyone has always been interested in how tall a child is going to grow,"
says Baxter-Jones. "This was curiosity-driven science for curiosity-driven
parents." To predict a child's adult height, their age, height, sitting height and
weight are entered into the group's formula. A simple online tool for this
purpose is on the web at http://www.usask.ca/kinesiology/research_index.php. The prediction method is the first to take into account the child's stage of
growth. Their formula is based on the height measurements of 224 boys and
120 girls. Individuals were classified as early, average or late maturers
depending on the age they reached their adolescent growth spurt or peak
height velocity. The team sees an abundance of real world applications for the prediction
method. Although Baxter-Jones says curious parents will be the most likely
to use the tool, as a kinesiologist, he hopes coaches and other health
professionals working with children will be able to take advantage of the
method for talent identification in their athletes. "Knowing the height of a child is going to help with sport placement," says
Baxter-Jones. "I don't want to say this is absolute because I don't want to
predict that someone's going to be 6'2" and they end up being 5'8" and they
put all their eggs in one basket and join volleyball. But it has the
potential to give the coach a broad indication of where the child is going
to end up and therefore, for talent identification, it could be extremely
useful." The most common prediction technique, which measures skeletal age through
wrist X-rays, is expensive and incurs radiation exposure. Another method,
which uses a measure of parental height, is susceptible to error and cannot
be used when one of the parents is not available. "Although the previous methods did predict adult height, ours is much more
applicable and easier to use," says Sherar, who wrote the paper as a
master's student under Baxter-Jones. The U of S method can predict adult height within + 5.35 centimetres 95 per
cent of the time in boys and + 6.81 centimetres 95 per cent of the time in
girls. But the group cautions that to obtain this degree of accuracy, correct
protocols of measuring sitting height, standing height and weight need to be
followed. The study is also meant for healthy children, free of any
growth-limiting diseases. In addition, the U of S prediction method has been developed and validated
on primarily Caucasian boys and girls. Future work will validate this method
using data from other ethnic populations. The work draws on more than 40 years of data collected by the Saskatchewan
Childhood Growth and Development (SCGD) research group at the College of
Kinesiology. The SCGD has undertaken two longitudinal studies of growth,
dating back to 1964. Data from these two studies was used to develop
equations that predict a child's biological maturity and, from this, their
adult height. Baxter-Jones' study is a part of his work with the U of S obesity human
health research group. These groups have been established through a funding
partnership between the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation and the
University of Saskatchewan. The research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
(CIHR) and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF). -30- Adam Baxter-Jones
Associate Professor
College of Kinesiology
University of Saskatchewan
baxter.jones@usask.ca
(306) 966-1078
http://www.usask.ca/kinesiology/faculty_index.php?id=2 David Hutton
Research Communications
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-6490
Dave.Hutton@usask.ca
www.usask.ca/research
| 