How many inches could I grow in College?

It’s possible, but I wouldn’t count on it. It varies depending on your hormones. Men can continue to grow up until they are 25.

Maybe 1 inch at the most, and a little broader. But, you may not grow more at all.

Oh, wait, are you a girl or a guy?

I’m a guy.

Good nuitrition and getting enough sleep has a lot to do with growth. At 17, it’s possible to grow several more inches.

Is it important to you that you grow taller?

@letmeknow17 I think there is a good chance you will grow another inch and get broader, even with a crappy diet, pretty much my first answer. But again no guarantee. With a crappy diet you might just get fatter instead, not good.

Possible an inch or more. After high school I was 5 foot 5 inches tall and I am now 40 and still the same high.

I should work on sleeping more, too, since lately I’ve only been getting about 5–7hrs of sleep.
@BarnacleBill: It’s very important. =P

@letmeknow17 Why is it important? 5’10” is a very nice height. My husband is 5’10”. Do you live in a place that has very tall people? You probably should sleep more. Are you tired all of the time?

I would suggest you think about improving your overall health by eating better and getting enough calcium and vitamin D, which are important for bone health, and getting more sleep. If your body is going to make more bone cells, it’s going to do it when you sleep and are vertical, and they will compress when you stand. You probably have at least another year of growing, and then will fill out as you get older. Better nuitrition, exercise and sleep will also help with stress.

@JLeslie It’s important to me because I want to be considered tall and most people consider 5’9–5’10 average height and 5’11–6’4 tall.

Don’t be silly and let the bizarre concept of one inch become important. Don’t get fixated on such an arbitrary and really meaningless definition of what matters. It is shallow, and ultimately futile.

Google all the POTUS who were 5“10.5’ or under.

@letmeknow17 I see. Well, good luck. 5’10” is still very nice. The average woman is around 5’3” so with heels women will still be a shorter than you if that is part of your concern. I actually am not attracted to men 6’+. Not that I wouldn’t date a guy that tall, but when I scope out a room of men, 6’+ is not on my list. Not that you care who I am attracted to, but just pointing out not everyone is obsessed with men being very tall.

Correction: it’s going to do it when you sleep and are horizontal

@gailcalled good point.
@letmeknow17 I care what all women are attracted to=)

I grew an inch my freshman year, from 5’8” to 5’9”, and haven’t grown since. My dad is 6’0” and his grandfather was 6’2”, but his father has my exact build. He topped out at 5’9”. A lot of it is genetics. I’m hoping for the three inches I was promised, but it doesn’t seem likely. All I can say is that I ate poorly as a kid and that might have had some effect. Eat well! Drink your milk!

@gailcalled, there have been only seven U.S. presidents under 5’10” in height. And that includes times when the average height for a man was much lower. Madison and Harrison were the only two presidents to have stood below the average height for their day. The average height of a Fortune 500 CEO is 6 feet tall—three inches above the national average. It’s not everything, but height does matter.

@quarkquarkquark: Well, I wasn’t around with a straight edge, but I found nineteen.

Feet/Inches Presidents by Height
5’ 4” James Madison
5’ 6” Benjamin Harrison
Martin Van Buren
5’ 7” John Quincy Adams
John Adams
William McKinley
5’ 8” Ulysses S. Grant
William H. Harrison
James Polk
Zachary Taylor
5’ 8½” Rutherford Hayes
5’ 9” Millard Fillmore
Harry S. Truman
5’ 9½” Jimmy Carter
5’ 10” Clavin Coolidge
Andrew Johnson
Franklin Pierce
Theodore Roosevelt
5’ 10½” Dwight D. Eisenhower

Another odd tidbit is that most Headmasters of independent day and boarding schools are taller than average.

@gailcalled @quarkquarkquark Maybe some of that has to do with the nationailties of the people who were most in power in the US our first 200 years. Actually as far as being president, 19 out of 43 is about half, so 5’10” would seem to give a guy a pretty good chance. As far as being CEO, I would guess the wealthy and educated also in the first 200 years were likely to be from countries like England, Germany, Austria, Holland, Scottland, even lithuania parts of Russia, all tend to have a fairly tall average height. So, some of it might have to do with opportunity more than height. There definitely have been short leaders in the world in history.

@gailcalled, I mean’t under 5’10” as in under 5’10”. Only seven of those.

@JLeslie, that’s an interesting (Gladwell-ish) point. There have been all sorts of studies showing that tall people are more successful, but whether we should chalk that up to their own perceptions or to those of other people is an open question. And in fact, height distributions in Northern and Western Europe a couple centuries ago were fairly uniform. Holland, until the 20th century, was known for having the shortest population in Europe. Today it has the second-tallest.

@quarkquarkquark I actually just looked at this wikipedia page with average heights around the world. In Amercia they actually give the average and then also averages among white, blacks and Mexicans (not Hispanics interestingly) I don’t think I noticed that they broke it up for other countries just reinforcing how diverse America, with large minority populations, unless I missed it that they did that for other countries skimming too fast.

And you say whether it is their own perception or the perception of others, that is very interesting. So you think a person who feels tall might be more successful? I wonder how my husband perceives his height? He is the tallest in his family, he is Mexican, very tall for an average Mexican, but average in the US. But, he has not lived in very tall states. When he is in the west, especially upper midwest, he notices how tall people are, especially the women. All those vikings up there you know. In the Pacific northwest and western Canada it seemed there were many white people who were tall also, but then there are so many Asians there are extremes.

@JLeslie, I think there’s a certain vicious, self-defeating cycle among short men. We’re hard-wired to respect height, and even if that weren’t true, the feeling of inferiority engendered by seeing tall men in the media and hearing women talk about tell men is enough to make any short guy unambitious and insecure.

@quarkquarkquark Just sayin’ again, I was never into very tall men. I am 5’6” so I am not short. Height also kind of disappears for me as I get to know the person. I don’t think of my FIL as short, but he is maybe one inch taller than me? Not sure. Easily he is shorter than me when I have heels on. I think of my girlfriends as being my height, and they are all shorter, most of them 5’2” including my sister. I hate being the tallest girl in the room, hate it.

I guess maybe it might depend how short you are. Certainly 5’10” men should not feel short.

@JLeslie, I mean, that’s great for you (and your husband). Certainly all this has something to do with geography, but I made a generalization that I’m not finding disproved by occasional anecdotes. My girlfriend is 5’4”, and she doesn’t mind that I’m 5’9” (a full five inches taller!) but I know plenty of other girls who “only” date guys 6 feet and up. It’s bullshit, but it’s a fact of our culture.

Grow your mind, and stop worrying about your height…height doesn’t matter, who you are as a person matters (unless of course you’re hoping for a basketball scholarship, lol!)

If I am dancing with a guy, I really don’t want to hear his stomach growling . . . (this happened to me at a high school dance long ago). I prefer my ears to be in the range of his chin to his ears . . .