Does Drinking Milk Help You Grow Taller?

Everyone knows that eating healthful foods is important for growing children, but do some nutritious foods, like milk, help you grow?

Yes. Here’s how: Milk contains 13 essential nutrients, all of which contribute to healthy bodies. And milk is the No. 1 food source of most of these, including calcium and vitamin D, in the diets of children.

What Determines Height?

There’s no exact formula that impacts height. Instead, there are several factors that work together in ways scientists continue to study. A key determinant, however, is DNA—height is considered a complex trait, with thousands of genetic variants.

Other aspects that affect our growth include hormones, medical conditions, early-life exposure to hazardous materials, the quality of healthcare we receive, our levels of physical activity, and of course—nutrition.

How Milk Strengthens Bones and Builds Muscle

Calcium, vitamin D, phosphorus, and protein are necessary for growing strong bones and bodies. Protein is a key nutrient for building muscle at any age. But helping to build healthy bones and muscle isn’t the only way drinking milk can help you grow taller. The other vitamins in milk help children grow taller in other ways:

• Vitamin A: Helps maintain vision, healthy skin and a healthy immune system
• Vitamin B12: Helps build red blood cells and helps maintain the central nervous system
• Riboflavin: Helps convert food into energy
• Niacin (equivalents): Helps with the normal function of many enzymes in the body
• Potassium: Helps maintain healthy blood pressure

How Much Milk Should You Drink?

While good nutrition throughout childhood and adolescence is important for proper growth and development, the body needs more of some nutrients, such as calcium, during growth spurts in older children and teens. Even after the teen growth spurt ends, bones continue to gain strength and density: 90 percent of peak bone mass is reached by age 18 in women and 20 in men. So to build strong bones, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends two to three servings of dairy foods (milk, cheese and yogurt) for kids four to eight years old, and four servings for adolescents to help meet calcium and vitamin D needs.

Making milk a regular part of a healthy eating pattern not only supports healthy growth, drinking milk as a child can also help build healthy habits for lifelong health.