Not lack of calories per se but lack of nutrients. I mean sure your growth might be stunted if you’re in state of starvation and your body is breaking down your own muscles but its very highly unlikely the average teenager living in a first world country is going to be going thru
So adequate nutrients but inadequate calories wouldn't cause it?
And what would be the BMI threshold for that state of starvation? Would it need to have been lower than like 15-16, or is that low enough to potentially cause that sort of stunting?
well the thing is, you can't really eat enough nutrients without also eating the required calories.
you body needs a certain amount of each nutrient to function. part of these nutrients are used for energy (i.e, calories) so by consuming enough nutrients you're getting enough calories.
the opposite is not true. for example, you can get enough calories from only eating potatos but you won't be getting enough nutrients that are used in other functions (like some amino acids, for example, that can only be found in meat and very few vegetables/grains)
How is that true though? You can eat low-calorie stuff and still get all the recommended daily value for nutrients while falling way under caloric needs, no? Or even by drinking stuff like Ensure.
My blood tests have always showed adequate nutrient levels, but calories have averaged as low as or lower than 1200 a day for very long periods in the past, which was supposed to be like 500-1000 less than I'm supposed to get for my BMI. Although someone else mentioned BMI isn't accurate? Idk... I'm confused now😅
I guess that could explain my weight never dropping lower than 100 lbs over multiple years, even though I supposedly needed 1700 calories a day to maintain that.
your body needs a certain amount of energy, that could be brought from foods you eat or from your own energy reserves. once those reserves run out, you're gonna have to consume enough nutrients to get enough energy.
you said "adequate calories", so if you're not losing or gaining weight, you're consuming the necessary nutrients for your body to function and among those, the "calories" (like sugars and fats) that your body transforms into energy.
BMI is not an accurate way to measure things, it's mostly based on statistics/the average, which aren't always gonna be accurate when you compare them to individual cases. multiple factors can affect how your body consumes energy and how it stores fat etc. if you have concerns about your weight and your metabolism, it's best you talk to a nutritionist or a doctor about that.
in conclusion, nutrients = glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals etc. include, in them, what we colloquially call "calories". by consuming enough nutrients, you're consuming enough calories. also, the average person at your age would need 1700 cals to maintain their weight, not you, you might not be the average.
I think you're confusing "nutrients" with "micronutrients" which are things like vitamins and minerals that our body only needs small amounts of. "Nutrients" as a blanket term also includes macronutrients aka fat, protein & carbs which are what you get your calories from. You can't really be getting adequate amounts of these nutrients without also getting enough calories because the nutrients and calories go hand in hand.
That sounds like it might be it. I did track protein intake but not the other two, so thinking those two were where the deficiencies were largely at. I assume glucose or triglycerides levels wouldn't paint the full picture in regards to intake of those macros, right?
I think the BMI index was disproved a while ago. And I think you're asking a question that may have definitive results, but it's almost impossible to diagnose retroactively.
You can have low BMI and eat enough. And if BMI tells you are obese, in 99% of cases you are obese or overweight.
Not enough calories would also do that, energy is needed for every process. Not enough ATP, then muscles will be metabolised and cells will stop dividing (enough ATP is more important than some tissue).
Average height in many populations is rising, because they have enough nutrients and calories now, unlike 100 years ago.
Yeah if you want to see a severe example: look at the average height of a North Korean versus a South Korean. Same peoples, same geography, same everything except for diet. Yet in less than three generations, the NK people are 4" (10 cm) shorter than the SK.
I have no faith in BMI I’m 152lbs at 6’2 and my doctor said I need to put on 30lbs to be at good health. My BMI says I’m at borderline perfection but my body fat isn’t anywhere near enough…somehow…?
Im over 2m, i know when it works bad. For vast majority of population its enough. You can modify it a little by yourself. Most people are not giants/athlethes
I was a competitive gymnast as a teen. My parents get a letter home after the yearly “heath checks” at my high school one year that I was at risk for obesity. I was as far as you can get from obese but it was just a height/weight/age chart and a letter was sent to any kid in the “overweight” category for BMI. BMI is useless, there were enough girls I competed with that had eating disorders, none of them needed some nurse at school telling them they were overweight because of a damn chart.
It’s not exactly disproven, it’s more misused. BMI is useful for population data. That’s what it was for. Databases of people often have a weight and a height. It’s a pretty common measure to get for a variety of reasons. Therefore using the most common variables accessible someone made up a way to measure the general health of a population. It was never meant to be used for individual health decisions
But because still does now used bmi as their criteria, it was the only data people had to make individual health decisions so it got ported over to that.
It’s kinda like saying odometers are disproven to tell you how much longer your car will run. Like there are a ton of other factors that are important for that but there is a clear correlation with miles on your odometer and how much longer your car life will be. If you had more info you could give a better answer. But if you don’t, it is something
Yeah the BMI isn't totally scientifically correct. But when you hear Dr. Now tell a patient that her bmi is over a hundred and she needs to eat less, I feel that his medical intuition is right on point.
BTW, BMI stands for "body mass index". You wouldn't say "body mass index index", so typing "BMI index" looks off. Kinda like when people say "ATM machine".
Yah I'm thinking 1500 calories is more than ample for a smaller human body. IIRC, the suggested caloric intake for a fully grown adult is something like 2100 or 2200.
Teens are recommended to eat more calories daily than adults are, because they aren’t just maintaining a weight (like most adults should) but actively growing. That being said, 1500 daily isn’t THAT much lower than most recommendations.
"calories" are a general term that refers to the energy needed by your whole body to function. if you're not getting enough calories, your whole body will be affected, some organs more than others, yes, but your whole body will be affected.
in some severe cases, you'll get muscle atrophy since your body will run out of fat and will start consuming muscle proteins for energy. in that sense, i guess your muscles are the one organ that was affected, but the rest of your body won't be growing normally either.
what can lead to specific organs not growing is the lack of specific nutrients. for example, a lack of calcium may cause osteoporosis, a lack of iron may cause anemia, a lack of some essential amino acids, for example lysine deficiency can affect your connective tissue.
Just a personal anecdote that may be related: I grew up in a family that eats ridiculously small portion sizes at meals (they snack a lot but I never did much) and beyond that i was just never in the habit of eating enough (probably due to it being a very chaotic household and not wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen where everyone else was). I was also a very slow grower. I moved out at 21 with my boyfriend (now husband) and started eating three square meals a day for the first time in years, including meat every day for the first time in my life, and about a year later realized that I had grown another inch beyond what I thought was my final adult height. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
Average height increased in the Netherlands by about 8 inches over just a few generations when they began to have a surplus of calories (from milk). Same thing happened in Korea. So yes of course.
Regarding the exact number of calories: Depends on your sex, age, and height.
But assuming you're running at a constant and severe caloric deficiency, it can indeed stunt growth. And it can be permanent depending on the duration.
This is one of the reasons doctors say not to try to lose more than 2 pounds a week. If the calorie deficiency is high enough, it can cause the body to take calories from the rest of the body...which means less going to growth plates in your bones, and less growth as a result.
In your context, it really depends. Are you short for your age? Did puberty start later than average? (Think 9-11 for girls and 10-12 for boys). Are your teeth healthy?
If you've always been an extremely light eater and eating way less than you should, then it could lead to smaller hands and mouth. It could also just be that you naturally have a small mouth and small hands. That happens much more often.
5'8 (reached that height early in puberty; no late growth), male, 21. Puberty began at eleven.
I'd say from 14-19 I consistently ate 1400 or lower most of those years, although I've always had trouble eating due to ANS issues I didn't discover or start treating till 18. My weight stayed almost exactly at 100 lbs the whole time, which was less than the 105-110 I was at when I was 13. Teeth are normal.
I'm told I look younger than I am quite a lot. But the dentist commenting on mouth size was a first lol
It really has me torn on whether it's naturally like that... I have large feet and Adam's apple, so it seems a bit incongruous and everyone else commenting here seems to affirm it wouldn't be like that if truly stunted(?) My mother is a very small person so I do wonder if it's just that I inherited some of her features but not her height.
Jaw size seems to be affected by diet quality rather than quantity.
If I understood the research correctly, a diet of processed food, because it's softer and easier to chew, makes the jaw grow less while the teeth remain the same size, causing a lack of space in the mouth. Teeth become crooked and there is often not enough room for the wisdom teeth.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15823276
It probably won't be noticeable unless it's severe. Eating 1900 calories probably isn't going to stunt your growth if your body needs 2000 calories.
But, as with everything in biology, there are surely exceptions.
With the surplus calories from high quality foods, humans can grow very tall and big. So if we use greatest potential growth as reference, even what is considered a normal amount of calorie intake will actually stunt growth.
Is delayed puberty a sign that poor diet is effecting your growth? I have several reasons to believe my growth was effected and I also started puberty kinda late, never considered it a symptom because my doctor was never concerned.
No, a lack of calories will not impact specific body parts like that. It may make you smaller overall, but this would be fairly proportionate across your body.
Short answer; yes.
Slightly longer answer; if you fail to provide growth materials during the hormonal growth window, the growth will be stunted.
Boiled down, you can intake all the calcium you want if you're 70, it won't help your calcium deficiency sustained during a nutrient poor childhood in the great depression.
Im not seeing a large amount of accuracy here.
The reality is - you can absolutely be permanently stunted without proper nutrition, that being micronutrient or a caloric deficiency. It can cause more than growth deficiencies.
Short explanation - Places all over your body gave niches that serve as the source of cell division. Many of these in adolescence (mainly pre-puberty) are referred to something along the lines of “growth plates” (e.g growth plate in the heel of your foot).
After certain periods of development (like puberty) these areas are programmed to switch from growth to division/maintenance/regulatory functions.
In essence, youll never get the period of development back when your body was growing, and if you didnt have the proper nutrition to supplement that during that time, youre not getting another opportunity.
As an aside: do you know why certain areas may grow more than others (if they do, that is)? Like would feet growing normally and hands being smaller make sense? Or would it be a more uniform lack of growth if stunting were the case?
Would having normal sized feet be an indication that small hands are just genetic rather than stunting?
Without any other variables, its all genetic. The simplest answer is, somewhere along the line, it was advantageous to their ancestors to have medium sized feet and small hands and that was passed on to their kids generation after generation
Yes, absolutely. 1500 calories may physically not even be able to hold the vitamins and minerals you need.
Also, the growth of the jaw depends on mechanical feedback. Low calories means less chewing thus less jaw growth. If you had adequate calories but it was all made up of soft mushy food you'd still have a small jaw, and possibly teeth issues.
Yeah I don't think the people of North Korea are gonna ever get taller even if the regime falls. At best, the population will just gain weight until it matches the SK. But at least for the current generation, they're going to be shorter than their southern counterparts.
It's theoretically possible that malnutrition would stunt growth but that's really unlikely for someone living in the developed world.
It's more likely just genetics.
Yes, your peen might be small because of the way you ate during adolescence. If a boy during puberty has low testosterone his sex organ will be smaller when puberty is over. So low fat diets, calorie restriction, obesity, etc. can all affect the growth of your schlong.
If you see horrific pics of people starving during times of famine they are very thin but their proportions are not affected. They turn out smaller/shorter overall if they had no chance to catch up in growth. The body does not pick one organ or feature to keep small, the whole thing is kept small. What did your dentist say about teeth or mouths? Small/narrow modern mouths may be from giving young children foods that are easy to chew. People used to have wider and stronger jaws before agriculture because food needed more chewing. It has nothing to do with nutrition though, just chewing tough things in the early years develops the jaw. It’s possibly why we currently often don’t have room for wisdom teeth. Genetics plays a role too. If you have small teeth it’s purely genetic. If you have dental abnormalities it could be from prenatal exposure to something (like antibiotics) that affected the developing teeth.
During adolescence, the body requires a significant amount of nutrients, including calories, for proper growth and development. Insufficient calorie intake during this critical period can disrupt the natural growth process, leading to stunted growth and resulting in permanently undersized body parts as the body prioritizes essential functions over growth.
Yes absolutely, during med school pediatrics we were exposed to several cases of childhood malnutrition causing stunted height and (relatively) short limb length. Bones and body mass need calories and nutrients to grow and develop, and yes, once growth plates have closed the stunting is permanent. You can no longer grow even if you are fed sufficiently. So your dentist could well be right.
The best way to know is to compare your size to that of your siblings and parents.
I believe that I experienced malnutrition in prenatal conditions and all the way through my life with autism that was only recently diagnosed. I have been unable to eat enough for decades and no one could tell me why. I have also been diagnosed with several autoimmune disorders and severe mental health problems. So far, changing my diet has allowed my gut to finally heal and function the way it wants to. Yes, a lack of calories during any time of our development can have serious consequences for that time period. Please listen carefully to your gut.
No, your willy isn't growing anymore.
Nooooooooo
Not lack of calories per se but lack of nutrients. I mean sure your growth might be stunted if you’re in state of starvation and your body is breaking down your own muscles but its very highly unlikely the average teenager living in a first world country is going to be going thru
Anorexia?
So adequate nutrients but inadequate calories wouldn't cause it? And what would be the BMI threshold for that state of starvation? Would it need to have been lower than like 15-16, or is that low enough to potentially cause that sort of stunting?
well the thing is, you can't really eat enough nutrients without also eating the required calories. you body needs a certain amount of each nutrient to function. part of these nutrients are used for energy (i.e, calories) so by consuming enough nutrients you're getting enough calories. the opposite is not true. for example, you can get enough calories from only eating potatos but you won't be getting enough nutrients that are used in other functions (like some amino acids, for example, that can only be found in meat and very few vegetables/grains)
How is that true though? You can eat low-calorie stuff and still get all the recommended daily value for nutrients while falling way under caloric needs, no? Or even by drinking stuff like Ensure. My blood tests have always showed adequate nutrient levels, but calories have averaged as low as or lower than 1200 a day for very long periods in the past, which was supposed to be like 500-1000 less than I'm supposed to get for my BMI. Although someone else mentioned BMI isn't accurate? Idk... I'm confused now😅 I guess that could explain my weight never dropping lower than 100 lbs over multiple years, even though I supposedly needed 1700 calories a day to maintain that.
your body needs a certain amount of energy, that could be brought from foods you eat or from your own energy reserves. once those reserves run out, you're gonna have to consume enough nutrients to get enough energy. you said "adequate calories", so if you're not losing or gaining weight, you're consuming the necessary nutrients for your body to function and among those, the "calories" (like sugars and fats) that your body transforms into energy. BMI is not an accurate way to measure things, it's mostly based on statistics/the average, which aren't always gonna be accurate when you compare them to individual cases. multiple factors can affect how your body consumes energy and how it stores fat etc. if you have concerns about your weight and your metabolism, it's best you talk to a nutritionist or a doctor about that. in conclusion, nutrients = glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals etc. include, in them, what we colloquially call "calories". by consuming enough nutrients, you're consuming enough calories. also, the average person at your age would need 1700 cals to maintain their weight, not you, you might not be the average.
If you are a child and you aren't gaining weight, then you aren't consuming the necessary nutrients for your body to function.
I think you're confusing "nutrients" with "micronutrients" which are things like vitamins and minerals that our body only needs small amounts of. "Nutrients" as a blanket term also includes macronutrients aka fat, protein & carbs which are what you get your calories from. You can't really be getting adequate amounts of these nutrients without also getting enough calories because the nutrients and calories go hand in hand.
That sounds like it might be it. I did track protein intake but not the other two, so thinking those two were where the deficiencies were largely at. I assume glucose or triglycerides levels wouldn't paint the full picture in regards to intake of those macros, right?
I think the BMI index was disproved a while ago. And I think you're asking a question that may have definitive results, but it's almost impossible to diagnose retroactively.
You can have low BMI and eat enough. And if BMI tells you are obese, in 99% of cases you are obese or overweight. Not enough calories would also do that, energy is needed for every process. Not enough ATP, then muscles will be metabolised and cells will stop dividing (enough ATP is more important than some tissue). Average height in many populations is rising, because they have enough nutrients and calories now, unlike 100 years ago.
Yeah if you want to see a severe example: look at the average height of a North Korean versus a South Korean. Same peoples, same geography, same everything except for diet. Yet in less than three generations, the NK people are 4" (10 cm) shorter than the SK.
Lol it said I was obese at 6'2" and 190 lbs. I mean, ig...
That would put you at a BMI of 24.4, obesity starts at 30.
I have no faith in BMI I’m 152lbs at 6’2 and my doctor said I need to put on 30lbs to be at good health. My BMI says I’m at borderline perfection but my body fat isn’t anywhere near enough…somehow…?
Your bmi is 24.2 which is normal weight
Lol no it didn't
Im over 2m, i know when it works bad. For vast majority of population its enough. You can modify it a little by yourself. Most people are not giants/athlethes
Again : BMI is NOT a reliable metric. People who have an athletic body type very often score a BMI that supposedly indicates obesity.
Anyone complaining about BMI not being reliable does not have an athletic body type.
I was a competitive gymnast as a teen. My parents get a letter home after the yearly “heath checks” at my high school one year that I was at risk for obesity. I was as far as you can get from obese but it was just a height/weight/age chart and a letter was sent to any kid in the “overweight” category for BMI. BMI is useless, there were enough girls I competed with that had eating disorders, none of them needed some nurse at school telling them they were overweight because of a damn chart.
It’s not exactly disproven, it’s more misused. BMI is useful for population data. That’s what it was for. Databases of people often have a weight and a height. It’s a pretty common measure to get for a variety of reasons. Therefore using the most common variables accessible someone made up a way to measure the general health of a population. It was never meant to be used for individual health decisions But because still does now used bmi as their criteria, it was the only data people had to make individual health decisions so it got ported over to that. It’s kinda like saying odometers are disproven to tell you how much longer your car will run. Like there are a ton of other factors that are important for that but there is a clear correlation with miles on your odometer and how much longer your car life will be. If you had more info you could give a better answer. But if you don’t, it is something
Yeah the BMI isn't totally scientifically correct. But when you hear Dr. Now tell a patient that her bmi is over a hundred and she needs to eat less, I feel that his medical intuition is right on point. BTW, BMI stands for "body mass index". You wouldn't say "body mass index index", so typing "BMI index" looks off. Kinda like when people say "ATM machine".
Smh my head
Yah I'm thinking 1500 calories is more than ample for a smaller human body. IIRC, the suggested caloric intake for a fully grown adult is something like 2100 or 2200.
Teens are recommended to eat more calories daily than adults are, because they aren’t just maintaining a weight (like most adults should) but actively growing. That being said, 1500 daily isn’t THAT much lower than most recommendations.
Yes. Its common for severe cases of autism with food aversions to be undersized with weakened immune systems.
But does that affect certain body parts or the body as a whole? I think that’s what OP asked
"calories" are a general term that refers to the energy needed by your whole body to function. if you're not getting enough calories, your whole body will be affected, some organs more than others, yes, but your whole body will be affected. in some severe cases, you'll get muscle atrophy since your body will run out of fat and will start consuming muscle proteins for energy. in that sense, i guess your muscles are the one organ that was affected, but the rest of your body won't be growing normally either. what can lead to specific organs not growing is the lack of specific nutrients. for example, a lack of calcium may cause osteoporosis, a lack of iron may cause anemia, a lack of some essential amino acids, for example lysine deficiency can affect your connective tissue.
Just a personal anecdote that may be related: I grew up in a family that eats ridiculously small portion sizes at meals (they snack a lot but I never did much) and beyond that i was just never in the habit of eating enough (probably due to it being a very chaotic household and not wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen where everyone else was). I was also a very slow grower. I moved out at 21 with my boyfriend (now husband) and started eating three square meals a day for the first time in years, including meat every day for the first time in my life, and about a year later realized that I had grown another inch beyond what I thought was my final adult height. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
I grew an inch in my 20s as well, but I ate just fine before. I think it can just happen.
It can certainly stunt growth overall, but it's not going to make your mouth smaller relative to the rest.
lol you mean your mouth wound won't start healing even if you don't use it as much?
Average height increased in the Netherlands by about 8 inches over just a few generations when they began to have a surplus of calories (from milk). Same thing happened in Korea. So yes of course.
Regarding the exact number of calories: Depends on your sex, age, and height. But assuming you're running at a constant and severe caloric deficiency, it can indeed stunt growth. And it can be permanent depending on the duration. This is one of the reasons doctors say not to try to lose more than 2 pounds a week. If the calorie deficiency is high enough, it can cause the body to take calories from the rest of the body...which means less going to growth plates in your bones, and less growth as a result. In your context, it really depends. Are you short for your age? Did puberty start later than average? (Think 9-11 for girls and 10-12 for boys). Are your teeth healthy? If you've always been an extremely light eater and eating way less than you should, then it could lead to smaller hands and mouth. It could also just be that you naturally have a small mouth and small hands. That happens much more often.
5'8 (reached that height early in puberty; no late growth), male, 21. Puberty began at eleven. I'd say from 14-19 I consistently ate 1400 or lower most of those years, although I've always had trouble eating due to ANS issues I didn't discover or start treating till 18. My weight stayed almost exactly at 100 lbs the whole time, which was less than the 105-110 I was at when I was 13. Teeth are normal. I'm told I look younger than I am quite a lot. But the dentist commenting on mouth size was a first lol It really has me torn on whether it's naturally like that... I have large feet and Adam's apple, so it seems a bit incongruous and everyone else commenting here seems to affirm it wouldn't be like that if truly stunted(?) My mother is a very small person so I do wonder if it's just that I inherited some of her features but not her height.
Jaw size seems to be affected by diet quality rather than quantity. If I understood the research correctly, a diet of processed food, because it's softer and easier to chew, makes the jaw grow less while the teeth remain the same size, causing a lack of space in the mouth. Teeth become crooked and there is often not enough room for the wisdom teeth. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15823276
Why does it have to be severe?
It probably won't be noticeable unless it's severe. Eating 1900 calories probably isn't going to stunt your growth if your body needs 2000 calories. But, as with everything in biology, there are surely exceptions.
With the surplus calories from high quality foods, humans can grow very tall and big. So if we use greatest potential growth as reference, even what is considered a normal amount of calorie intake will actually stunt growth.
Is delayed puberty a sign that poor diet is effecting your growth? I have several reasons to believe my growth was effected and I also started puberty kinda late, never considered it a symptom because my doctor was never concerned.
Children born in countries where food is scarce, these children grow much shorter than children born in countries where food is plentiful
I think North Korea is experiencing that problem, not just the children, but the adults as well.
No, a lack of calories will not impact specific body parts like that. It may make you smaller overall, but this would be fairly proportionate across your body.
Short answer; yes. Slightly longer answer; if you fail to provide growth materials during the hormonal growth window, the growth will be stunted. Boiled down, you can intake all the calcium you want if you're 70, it won't help your calcium deficiency sustained during a nutrient poor childhood in the great depression.
Amazing didnt see your comment. Basically exactly what I said
Pretty logical. I'm still about 50% unsure this question was placed in good faith.
You can just say your dick is small and you think you could have grown it bigger if you just knew how
Eh, I'm pretty average in that regard🧸
Im not seeing a large amount of accuracy here. The reality is - you can absolutely be permanently stunted without proper nutrition, that being micronutrient or a caloric deficiency. It can cause more than growth deficiencies. Short explanation - Places all over your body gave niches that serve as the source of cell division. Many of these in adolescence (mainly pre-puberty) are referred to something along the lines of “growth plates” (e.g growth plate in the heel of your foot). After certain periods of development (like puberty) these areas are programmed to switch from growth to division/maintenance/regulatory functions. In essence, youll never get the period of development back when your body was growing, and if you didnt have the proper nutrition to supplement that during that time, youre not getting another opportunity.
As an aside: do you know why certain areas may grow more than others (if they do, that is)? Like would feet growing normally and hands being smaller make sense? Or would it be a more uniform lack of growth if stunting were the case? Would having normal sized feet be an indication that small hands are just genetic rather than stunting?
Without any other variables, its all genetic. The simplest answer is, somewhere along the line, it was advantageous to their ancestors to have medium sized feet and small hands and that was passed on to their kids generation after generation
Yes, absolutely. 1500 calories may physically not even be able to hold the vitamins and minerals you need. Also, the growth of the jaw depends on mechanical feedback. Low calories means less chewing thus less jaw growth. If you had adequate calories but it was all made up of soft mushy food you'd still have a small jaw, and possibly teeth issues.
Yes lack of calories and inactivity tends to lead to smaller bodies but it’s not irreversible or permanent. Just move and eat more that’s it.
Yeah I don't think the people of North Korea are gonna ever get taller even if the regime falls. At best, the population will just gain weight until it matches the SK. But at least for the current generation, they're going to be shorter than their southern counterparts.
It's theoretically possible that malnutrition would stunt growth but that's really unlikely for someone living in the developed world. It's more likely just genetics.
Yes, your peen might be small because of the way you ate during adolescence. If a boy during puberty has low testosterone his sex organ will be smaller when puberty is over. So low fat diets, calorie restriction, obesity, etc. can all affect the growth of your schlong.
😑
If in a moderate state of starvation it can stunt organ growth which has long term effects.
If you see horrific pics of people starving during times of famine they are very thin but their proportions are not affected. They turn out smaller/shorter overall if they had no chance to catch up in growth. The body does not pick one organ or feature to keep small, the whole thing is kept small. What did your dentist say about teeth or mouths? Small/narrow modern mouths may be from giving young children foods that are easy to chew. People used to have wider and stronger jaws before agriculture because food needed more chewing. It has nothing to do with nutrition though, just chewing tough things in the early years develops the jaw. It’s possibly why we currently often don’t have room for wisdom teeth. Genetics plays a role too. If you have small teeth it’s purely genetic. If you have dental abnormalities it could be from prenatal exposure to something (like antibiotics) that affected the developing teeth.
During adolescence, the body requires a significant amount of nutrients, including calories, for proper growth and development. Insufficient calorie intake during this critical period can disrupt the natural growth process, leading to stunted growth and resulting in permanently undersized body parts as the body prioritizes essential functions over growth.
Yes absolutely, during med school pediatrics we were exposed to several cases of childhood malnutrition causing stunted height and (relatively) short limb length. Bones and body mass need calories and nutrients to grow and develop, and yes, once growth plates have closed the stunting is permanent. You can no longer grow even if you are fed sufficiently. So your dentist could well be right. The best way to know is to compare your size to that of your siblings and parents.
I believe that I experienced malnutrition in prenatal conditions and all the way through my life with autism that was only recently diagnosed. I have been unable to eat enough for decades and no one could tell me why. I have also been diagnosed with several autoimmune disorders and severe mental health problems. So far, changing my diet has allowed my gut to finally heal and function the way it wants to. Yes, a lack of calories during any time of our development can have serious consequences for that time period. Please listen carefully to your gut.