there's a condition that stunts growth, it's called stress-induced dwarfism, or Psychosocial Dwarfism.
It's a condition where growth is stunted due to emotional distress/neglect by a caregiver or other means in the child's surrounding environment, such as anxiety, social anxiety, stress, high cortisol. Despite being fed well, the child's growth curve didn't align with the normal, emotional stress and neglect were found to be present. This was apparently reversible upon removal of the child from the distressing environment, their growth returned to normal.
This gets me thinking, is it truly able to reverse to normal? What if you were meant to be 5'10 in terms of the max genetic limit, but due to this condition while growing up, and despite recovering upon removal of the stressed environment, you end up only 5'7 -5'9? Not to mention that children with anxiety disorders were 1-2 inches shorter than their peers on average.
"The study, published in the current issue of Pediatrics, found that adolescent and pre-adolescent girls who were overly anxious grew up to be roughly one to two inches shorter, on average, than other girls."
I personally was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and grew up in abusive household, and felt extreme social anxiety in school. I'm starting to believe I was stunted, and it definitely shows because I look younger, and my arms are way too lengthy for my height, 176 cm wingspan vs. 171 cm height.
This all has to do with the stress hormone 'cortisol' inhibiting growth, stress is good in short bursts because of fight or flight response to ensure survival, but in modern society, it's becoming more and more inflicted in long term or chronic, and this cortisol hormone is essentially inhibiting growth from occurring because the body is convinced that you are in danger due to emotional neglect, distress.
Anyone here experienced a lot of stress and anxiety growing up? High school was hell for me due to social anxiety, I think it shaved off some inches.
