Objectives. Numerous studies of child growth conducted in industrialised countries showed presence of the phenomenon of the adolescent growth spurt to the extent that its presence became a dogma applied to humans as a species. However, earliest observations of growth at adolescence and also observations of adolescent growth conducted in small traditional societies do not show pubertal spurts consistently. Longitudinal observations of growth of individuals in present day societies show strong polymorphism of the age at which puberty starts and ends and the magnitude of growth acceleration during puberty. Some normally developing individuals may not experience the pubertal growth spurt. Design, Seeting, Participants, Longitudinal height growth data of 110 girls aged 6-18 years from homogenous socio-economic situation, ie one medical high school (=nursing college) in one large Polish city of Lodz. Results, 18 (16%) girls did not show statistically significant acceleration of body height growth while they reached the same adult height as their spurting peers. Girls who experienced growth spurt had the age at peak height velocity of 11.2 years and peak height velocity of 69.3 mm, comparable to those found in many other studies. There was a negative correlation of adult height with variation of individual accelerations (r=-0.24, p=0.01) girls whose accelerations differed less from year to year achieved greater adult heights. Conclusions, Findings of no pubertal spurts in some individuals have been made in other samples studied by other authors, though rarely reported. It can be argued that slow growth at adolescence was more favourable in conditions of limited access to nutrition and medical care while polymorphisms determining fast, uneven growth became more prevalent after industrialisation that, together with progress in health sciences, relaxed natural selection on patterns of growth. Individuals who do not experience pubertal growth spurts, but are otherwise healthy, should not be subject to clinical interventions.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study did not receive any funding

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The research was carried out in collaboration with the local education administration (Board of Education), school heads, parents and children. Each child was asked for oral consent to be examined by a member of the anthropometric team, and children who refused were not measured. All members of the research crew spoke the local language (Polish). The whole procedure was approved by the Research Bioethics Committee of the University of Lodz (KBBN-UŁ).

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All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors