Revision summary
The adolescent growth spurt is a rapid height-weight rise at puberty. Girls peak earlier than boys on Tanner velocity curves. Hormones drive it; nutrition and class time it. Menarche follows the height peak. Human life history pairs long childhood with this late acceleration.
Model answer
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Introduction
The adolescent growth spurt is a rapid rise in height and weight at puberty. Among primates it is marked in humans and is a bio-cultural event, not only a hormone graph.
Body
Pattern
- J. M. Tanner plotted velocity curves. Peak height velocity comes earlier in girls than in boys, which is why girls may be taller at twelve and shorter as adults.
- Sex steroids, growth hormone, and IGF-1 drive the spurt. The pelvis, fat, and muscle take sex-specific paths.
- Menarche follows the height peak. Spermarche is less visible. Both lock fertility to a body that is still finishing.
Bio-cultural meaning
- Nutrition, class, and disease shift timing. Secular trend toward earlier puberty appears in well-fed populations.
- Inuit, high-altitude Tibetan, and chronically undernourished groups may show delayed or blunted spurts.
- The long human childhood plus a sharp spurt is part of the slow life-history that Washburn and later life-history theorists tied to learning and brain growth.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CH[Childhood] --> SP[Adolescent spurt] SP --> T[Tanner velocity] SP --> SEX[Earlier peak in girls] SP --> ENV[Nutrition class climate]
Conclusion
The adolescent spurt is a human-typical velocity peak shaped by hormones and by food, class, and climate. Tanner’s curves remain the teaching tool.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss different factors affecting growth and development in human beings.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q6(c)). View answer →
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Do all primates have this spurt?
A clear adolescent height spurt is especially marked in humans. Other primates show smaller or differently timed accelerations.
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Does a late spurt mean poor genes?
Usually it means energy stress or later maturation, not a racial type.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2016 · Q6(c) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
Discuss different factors affecting growth and development in human beings. -
2023 · Q3(c) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
What is mixed-longitudinal method of studying human growth. Discuss its merits and demerits. -
2015 · Q5(c) · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Longitudinal method of studying growth.
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