Poor diet affects height The average height difference among teenagers is 20 cm

, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Poor diet among school-age children and adolescents may lead to a gap of about 20 cm between the countries with the highest and shortest average heights, a study showed.
the study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, the Associated Press reported.
team analyzed data from more than 2,000 studies from 1985 to 2019 involving more than 65 million children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19. The results showed that the average height and average weight of children and adolescents, which are indicators of health and dietary quality, varied greatly around the world.
, the average height gap between 19-year-old boys in various countries and regions can be as high as 20 cm or more.the
study found that in 2019, 19-year-old boys in the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had the highest average height, while boys in East Timor, Laos and Papua New Guinea had the shortest average height, while 19-year-old girls in the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark and Iceland had the highest average height, and girls in Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal and Timor-Leste had the shortest average height.
, the study looked at body mass index (BMI). In some countries, children reach a healthy BMI by the age of five, but are likely to be overweight by the age of 19.
the researchers acknowledge that genes play an important role in children's height and weight, they also say nutrition and the environment remain key factors when it comes to the health of the population as a whole.
that global nutrition policy focuses primarily on children under five years of age, but studies show that more attention needs to be paid to the growth of older children and adolescents.