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"The Independent on Sunday', May 22, 1994
Tall tales and short stories
| Growing up is painful for most people, but | injections. Eachtime they do so, they are giving the | |
| growing up the 'wrong' shape or size can make | child the message that there is [id:72805]. We have | |
| puberty a misery. Teenagers who are considered to | often had to provide a great deal of psychological | |
| be too tall or too short, too fat or too thin, can | support for those who have gone through the | |
| suffer teasing, bullying and humiliation from other | treatment.' | |
| youngsters and develop strong feelings of | 'We as parents do not always make the best | |
| inferiority that follow them into later life. | decisions for our children,' Professor Brook add~ | |
| To achieve the perfect figure, teenagers | 'u is often better to help them to accept their | |
| themselves can go to extraordinary lengths. To | height than to [id:72806]' | |
| reach the right height, however, requires more | Dr David Weeks, a consultant psychologist at | |
| drastic action. In these cases, the parents are | the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, who knows all about | |
| often even more [id:72802] than the child, many | the problem since he is only 156cm, [id:72807]. | |
| having suffered teasing themselves when they | 'Parents should try to accept the imperfections of | |
| were young. Where do these people turn for help | their children. I know a very tall teenage girl | |
| and what are the choices open to them? | whose father wanted her to have an operation to | |
| 'it is relatively easy to treat girls who [id:72803],' | remove some of the bone from her legs to make | |
| says Professor Charles Broek, who runs a growth | her shorter. She said to him: "Look, I am training to | |
| clinic at the Middlesex Hospital, London, treating | be an engineer and I know that if you break things | |
| about 600 patients a year. 'We know that girls grow | that support weight they [id:72808] afterwards. | |
| only 30 cm from the start of puberty, so if you do | Thanks, but no thanks.''' | |
| not want a girl to grow to more than 180 cm, you | For many parents it is extremely painful to | |
| need to induce puberty early, when she is no more | watch their children struggle with growing | |
| than 150cm.' Puberty can be brought on artificially | problems. Sowhat should they do? 'It is important | |
| early by giving girls small doses of the horrnone | that parents do not [id:72809],' says DrWeeks. 'Kids | |
| oestrogen. | have enough worries about their bodies without | |
| Helping children who are going to be exceptionally | parents adding to them. Parents should help their | |
| small is [id:72804], however. Professor Brook's | children understand that we are all different ancla. | |
| clinic has, in the past, offered human growth | that a persen's physique is not all there is to | |
| horrnone injections for children who are likely to | someone.' | |
| remain small, but such treatment rarely adds | DrWeeksis convinced that [id:72810] is a powerful | |
| more than an inch to their fin al height. 'Human | factor for a teenager's self-respect. 'All the | |
| growth hormone should be reserved for those who | evidence shows that parents are as important to | |
| have too little of it themselves. Otherwise children | teenagers as they are to young children, but in a | |
| would suffer 10 years of daily injections, costing | different way. This is a [id:72811] period for parents, | |
| f.7,000 a year, to gain just one inch.' | because teenagers are often hostile towards them, | |
| Professor Brook believes strongly that medical | but research shows that teenagers do not want | |
| intervention should be used sparingly. 'When | their parents to say: "OK. Go ahead. You are on | |
| children are being given human growth hormone, it | your own now.''' | |
| is the parents who have to administer the |