Question
How can a 17-year-old boy with closed growth plates continue to grow taller?
Answer
Although the child’s growth plates have closed, they can still grow in height through long bone elongation or by utilizing growth spaces. The key is to enhance nutrition intake, increase physical activity, and improve physical fitness. Eating foods rich in calcium, iron, and zinc, avoiding staying up late, maintaining daily exercises like running, single bar, and double bar, drinking more milk before bedtime, and taking calcium gluconate oral solution can all help promote individual growth. Boys can continue to grow taller around the ages of 18 to 20.