At 17, most people still have some growing left to do, but how much depends heavily on sex, genetics, and how far along puberty has progressed. Growth plates in the long bones of the legs and arms close at different ages, and the window is not identical for everyone. In boys, at least half still have open growth plates at various sites between ages 15 and 18, with full closure at all sites by 21. In girls, the timeline runs roughly two years earlier. So a 17-year-old asking this question is not necessarily too late, but the remaining opportunity varies enormously from person to person, and the honest answer involves understanding what you can influence and what you cannot.
How Much Growth Is Left at 17
Your height gains come from growth plates, which are bands of cartilage near the ends of long bones. These plates produce new cartilage cells that gradually turn into bone, lengthening the bone in the process. Once the plates fuse completely, that bone stops getting longer, and no lifestyle change or supplement can reopen them.
An MRI-based study of adolescents found that in girls, at least 90% had fully fused growth plates at all measured sites between ages 15 and 18, with every female participant fused by age 19. In boys, 90% were fused between ages 17 and 20, with complete fusion in all males by 21.1PubMed Central. A cross‐sectional magnetic resonance imaging study of factors influencing growth plate closure in adolescents and young adults The plates do not close all at once; the heel fuses first, then the lower leg, then the knee area, and the wrist is often last. A 17-year-old boy with late-blooming puberty could have substantially more growth remaining than an early-maturing boy of the same age whose plates have already sealed.
If you want a concrete answer about your own situation, a bone age X-ray of the left hand and wrist is the standard clinical tool. Doctors use staging systems to assess how mature your skeleton is relative to your chronological age, and certain stages predict remaining growth with surprising precision. Some substages have a margin of error as small as a few months.2PubMed Central. Relationship between hand and wrist bone age assessment methods If your bone age is younger than your actual age, you likely have more runway. If it matches or exceeds your chronological age, the window is narrower.
What Drives Growth Plates to Close
Estrogen is the primary hormone responsible for shutting growth plates down, and this applies to both sexes. Boys produce estrogen too, converted from testosterone by an enzyme called aromatase. Research on growth plate cells has shown that estrogen does not directly turn cartilage into bone. Instead, it accelerates the natural aging process of the cartilage cells, exhausting their ability to keep dividing. Once the cells can no longer proliferate, the remaining cartilage is rapidly replaced by bone, and fusion is complete.3PubMed Central. Effects of estrogen on growth plate senescence and epiphyseal fusion This is why girls, who experience rising estrogen levels earlier in puberty, typically stop growing sooner than boys.
The growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) axis is the other major player. Growth hormone, released by the pituitary gland, stimulates the liver to produce IGF-I, which in turn drives cartilage cell multiplication in the growth plates.4PubMed Central. Pubertal growth and epiphyseal fusion During puberty, growth hormone output rises sharply, which is why the pubertal growth spurt happens. Anything that supports healthy growth hormone secretion during this window can help you reach your genetic ceiling.
Sleep Is Not Optional
Growth hormone secretion follows a very specific daily pattern, and the biggest pulse happens during deep sleep shortly after you fall asleep. This peak during slow-wave sleep is critical for growth, muscle development, and tissue repair.5PubMed Central. Complex relationship between growth hormone and sleep in children: insights, discrepancies, and implications If you are consistently sleeping poorly, going to bed very late, or getting fragmented sleep, you are blunting the very hormone signal your growth plates need.
For a 17-year-old, this is probably the single most actionable lever. Teens are biologically wired to stay up late, but most also wake early for school, creating chronic sleep debt. Aim for eight to ten hours. If that sounds unrealistic, even shifting your bedtime earlier by 30 to 45 minutes and keeping a consistent schedule on weekends can improve the amount of deep sleep you get per night. Screens, caffeine after midday, and irregular schedules all degrade sleep quality in ways that matter for growth hormone release.
Nutrition That Actually Matters
You do not need exotic supplements or protein powders to grow. You need adequate total calories, sufficient protein, and a few key micronutrients. The most important thing nutrition does for height is prevent deficiency from capping your genetic potential.
Caloric adequacy comes first. Restrictive eating disorders during adolescence can permanently stunt growth. Research on adolescent males with anorexia nervosa found that their height dropped significantly during illness, and while weight restoration triggered catch-up growth of up to two centimeters per month, most patients never fully recovered their lost height potential.6Pediatrics. Stunting of Growth as a Major Feature of Anorexia Nervosa in Male Adolescents A parallel study in adolescent females confirmed that patients admitted at younger ages or closer to the start of puberty suffered more severe growth impairment, and their final heights remained lower than expected even after treatment.7PLoS ONE. Linear Growth and Final Height Characteristics in Adolescent Females with Anorexia Nervosa Experts emphasize that while many consequences of malnutrition are reversible, the loss of genetic height potential can be permanent without early and aggressive weight restoration.8PubMed Central. Linear growth in young people with restrictive eating disorders: “Inching” toward consensus
The message here is not just for people with diagnosed eating disorders. Any 17-year-old who is chronically under-eating, whether for sports weight classes, body image concerns, or simply skipping meals, risks suppressing growth. If you are still growing, your body needs fuel.
Vitamin D matters more than many people realize. A study analyzing the relationship between blood vitamin D levels and growth velocity found that for each modest increase in vitamin D, children grew about 0.15 centimeters per year faster and had a lower risk of poor bone density.9PubMed Central. Relationships for vitamin D with childhood height growth velocity and low bone mineral density risk You do not need megadoses. Regular sun exposure and dietary sources like fortified milk, fatty fish, and eggs are usually sufficient, though if you live at a high latitude or spend most of your time indoors, a blood test and a supplement may be worthwhile.
Calcium is the other micronutrient worth paying attention to. A large longitudinal study of Chinese adolescents found a threshold effect: boys whose daily calcium intake during puberty fell below about 330 milligrams per day ended up measurably shorter as adults, by nearly half a centimeter on average, compared to those above that level. Above roughly 400 milligrams per day, additional calcium did not add more height.10Scientific Reports. Low Habitual Dietary Calcium and Linear Growth from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: results from the China Health and Nutrition Survey The practical takeaway: you do not need to drink gallons of milk, but getting at least a couple of servings of dairy or calcium-rich foods daily helps ensure your bones have the raw material they need.
Exercise, Weight Training, and the Stunting Myth
A persistent myth claims that lifting weights as a teenager stunts your growth by damaging growth plates. The evidence does not support this. A thorough review of the literature found that supervised resistance training programs do not negatively impact the growth or maturation of young people.11PubMed. Weight training in youth-growth, maturation, and safety: an evidence-based review A separate expert survey and literature review reached the same conclusion: properly supervised weight programs are not associated with increased risk of growth plate injury, and strength training is considered safe for individuals whose skeletons are still maturing.12PubMed. There is no need to avoid resistance training (weight lifting) until physeal closure
In fact, resistance training in adolescents carries real benefits: increased strength, stronger bones, lower rates of sports injuries, and improved self-esteem.13PubMed Central. Resistance training for children and adolescents The key qualifiers are supervision and sensible programming. Maximal one-rep lifts, poor form, and no coaching raise the injury risk for anyone, not just teenagers. But a well-structured routine with moderate loads is not going to make you shorter.
As for whether exercise makes you taller, it helps indirectly. Physical activity supports healthy hormone levels, good sleep, appetite regulation, and bone density. There is no evidence that specific stretching routines or hanging from bars will add permanent height, but staying physically active during your growth years supports the overall hormonal environment your body needs to grow.
Posture Can Change Your Measured Height
This is not the same as actual bone growth, but it matters more than people think. Poor posture, especially a forward head position and rounded upper back, can subtract one to two centimeters from your standing height. An experiment measuring spine height changes with hyperextension found that everyone gained measurable spine height simply from lying in an extended position for ten minutes, because the discs between vertebrae expanded.14PubMed Central. Spine Height and Disc Height Changes As the Effect of Hyperextension Using Stadiometry and MRI This illustrates how compressible the spine is and how posture habits affect the height other people see.
If you spend hours hunched over a phone or laptop, your spine’s natural curves exaggerate in the wrong direction. Strengthening your upper back and core, being conscious of how you sit and stand, and taking movement breaks throughout the day can help you present your full height rather than losing centimeters to slouching. This is not growth, but the visual effect is the same.
For teenagers with actual spinal curvature, like adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, the height difference can be more dramatic. Brace fitting for scoliosis produced an average immediate height gain of about 1.2 centimeters.15CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL. IMMEDIATE HEIGHT GAIN DURING SCOLIOSIS BRACE FITTING AS A PREDICTOR OF IN-BRACE SKELETAL CORRECTION: A NON-RADIOGRAPHIC CLINICAL INDICATOR Surgical correction of moderate to severe scoliosis resulted in a mean spinal height gain of about 2.7 centimeters, with some patients gaining over six centimeters.16PubMed. Gain in spinal height from surgical correction of idiopathic scoliosis If you have been told you have a curved spine, treating it is not just about back health; it could measurably change your stature.
Chronic Stress and Cortisol
This one flies under the radar. Chronic psychological stress elevates cortisol, and sustained high cortisol suppresses the growth hormone-IGF-I axis, interferes with thyroid function, and disrupts the hormonal signals that drive puberty and bone growth.17PubMed. Stress and Growth in Children and Adolescents The research on stress and growth is strongest in cases of severe psychosocial deprivation, where catch-up growth has been documented after children are removed from abusive or neglectful environments. But milder chronic stress, including academic pressure, family conflict, and sleep disruption from anxiety, all push the same hormonal levers in the wrong direction.
This does not mean that normal teenage stress will stunt you. But if you are under prolonged, intense stress and also sleeping poorly and eating erratically because of it, the combined effect on growth hormone output and cortisol levels is working against your growth potential.
How to Estimate Your Genetic Ceiling
Your parents’ heights are the strongest single predictor of how tall you will be. The most commonly used formula averages the parents’ heights, adds about 6.5 centimeters for boys or subtracts 6.5 for girls, and gives you a target range. But this classic method, introduced by Tanner in 1970, has known limitations. A population-based study found that a refined prediction model yields a 95% prediction interval of roughly plus or minus 10 centimeters around the calculated target.18Pediatric Research. Target Height as Predicted by Parental Heights in a Population-Based Study That is a wide band, and it means two siblings with identical parents can differ in adult height by quite a lot.
The Tanner formula also tends to underestimate the final height of children whose parents are both short, which can lead families and even clinicians to underestimate the child’s true growth potential.19PubMed Central. How accurate is Tanner’s formula in estimating target height? So if both your parents are on the shorter side, do not assume you are destined to be the same. Environment, nutrition, and the random shuffle of genetics all create room for you to exceed or fall short of the formula’s prediction.
Medical Options That Exist
If you are significantly shorter than expected and have open growth plates, there are medical interventions a pediatric endocrinologist might consider. These are not over-the-counter solutions; they require diagnosis, monitoring, and careful risk assessment.
Growth hormone therapy is the most studied option. In boys with predicted short adult stature and near-ending growth, a pilot study found that roughly 11 months of growth hormone treatment increased growth velocity dramatically and resulted in adult heights that exceeded predictions by a meaningful margin.20PubMed. A pilot study of growth hormone administration in boys with predicted adult short stature and near-ending growth A more recent study confirmed that the state of the growth plates matters: adolescents in mid-to-late puberty whose knee growth plates were still continuous on MRI responded better to growth hormone and gained more height per dose compared to those whose plates were already starting to break apart.21PubMed. Growth plate continuity on knee MRI predicts growth hormone effect in mid-to-late puberty with idiopathic short stature The implication is that timing matters. Starting earlier, while plates are still healthy, yields better results than waiting until fusion is nearly complete.
Aromatase inhibitors represent a different strategy. By blocking the conversion of testosterone to estrogen, they slow the rate at which growth plates age and fuse, effectively extending the growth window. A randomized trial in boys with delayed puberty found that treatment with letrozole delayed bone maturation and increased predicted adult height.22PubMed. Use of aromatase inhibitors to increase final height A case report documented an outcome where anastrozole treatment allowed a boy with advanced bone maturation to reach a final height of 164 centimeters rather than the 158 expected without treatment.23PubMed. Delayed closure of epiphyseal cartilages induced by the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole. Would it help short children grow up? These medications are not approved for cosmetic use in healthy teens, and they carry potential side effects including effects on bone density and metabolic markers. They are used cautiously, usually in specialized clinics.
The bottom line with medical interventions: they exist, they can work, but they require a diagnosis of clinical short stature, open growth plates, and professional supervision. Walking into a clinic at 17 and asking for growth hormone because you would prefer to be two inches taller is unlikely to get a prescription, and for good reason.
Cosmetic Limb Lengthening Surgery
This option exists but deserves a frank discussion of risks. Limb lengthening involves surgically breaking the bones of the legs and slowly separating the segments so new bone fills the gap. A systematic review found that the average height gain from cosmetic procedures was about 6.7 centimeters, with a mean follow-up of nearly five years. The average patient experienced roughly one obstacle and one problem during recovery, with ankle deformity being the most common issue.24PubMed Central. Cosmetic stature lengthening: systematic review of outcomes and complications
A report from a specialized center found that among patients who came in for revision after initial cosmetic lengthening, hardware failure occurred in nearly a quarter of cases, and problems with bone healing affected close to half.25PubMed Central. Complications after cosmetic limb lengthening, a specialized center experience With external fixators, pin site infections were reported in over half of femur lengthening cases, and bone re-fracture occurred in about 13%. Internal nails had lower complication rates but still carried risks of implant problems and delayed bone healing.26PubMed Central. Consent in Limb Lengthening Surgery: Predicting the True Incidence of Material Risk
Recovery takes months, involves significant pain, and requires extensive physical therapy. For a 17-year-old, this is not a realistic or advisable option. Most reputable surgeons require patients to be adults, and the decision should only come after years of psychological preparation and a thorough understanding of the risks. It is worth knowing this exists, but it belongs in the “last resort, years from now, with full informed consent” category.
Environmental Chemicals and Bone Growth
A growing body of research connects endocrine-disrupting chemicals to effects on bone development. These are substances found in plastics, pesticides, flame retardants, and industrial products that can mimic or interfere with hormones. They can alter how growth plate cartilage cells develop, disrupt calcium balance, and interfere with estrogen and thyroid signaling, all of which are relevant to bone growth.27Exposure and Health. Current Evidence on the Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) on Bone Growth and Health Research has found that different endocrine disruptors can either speed up or slow down bone maturation depending on the dose, timing, and the individual’s sex and pubertal stage.28Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. Divergent effects of EDCs on bone maturation: Role of body mass index and puberty
Animal studies have shown that bisphenol A (BPA), one of the most studied endocrine disruptors, can retard bone formation at low doses and cause more severe skeletal harm at higher doses.29Endocrinology and Metabolism. Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals on Bone Health The research in humans is still evolving, and nobody can tell you exactly how much your height has been affected by the plastics in your environment. But reducing exposure to BPA-containing containers, avoiding microwaving food in plastic, and choosing glass or stainless steel where practical are reasonable precautions for anyone who wants to minimize unnecessary hormonal interference during a period when their growth plates are still active.
Secular Trends and the Bigger Population Picture
Average adult height has been increasing across most of the world for the past century, driven by improvements in nutrition, sanitation, and disease control rather than genetic changes. This secular trend has plateaued in parts of Northern Europe, where populations appear to have reached something close to their genetic ceiling, but it is still ongoing in southern Europe, parts of Asia, and many developing regions.30PubMed. Secular trends in growth The implication is that environment matters enormously. If your grandparents grew up in conditions with poor nutrition or frequent childhood illness, your genetic potential for height may be substantially taller than their actual adult heights suggest.
Height Dissatisfaction and What the Research Says
It would be incomplete to discuss maximizing growth without acknowledging why the question feels urgent. Research into height dissatisfaction consistently finds that dissatisfaction with one’s height is associated with lower quality of life, independent of actual height. In other words, two people of the same height can have very different levels of distress about it, and the distress is what drives the quality-of-life difference, not the centimeters themselves.31PLOS Mental Health. Standing tall or falling short: A narrative review of height dissatisfaction and psychological outcomes
If you are 17 and focused on getting taller, do everything reasonable: sleep well, eat enough, stay active, manage stress, and get checked out if you suspect a medical issue. But also recognize that height is only partly in your control. The people who struggle most with their stature tend to be those who tie their self-worth to a number on a stadiometer. Addressing height dissatisfaction directly, whether through changing the internal narrative or working with a counselor, is at least as effective at improving quality of life as gaining a centimeter or two would be.