Parents fret over offspring who fail to measure up

Medical change

Experts said they believed the increased parental concern over children's height also stems from evolving child diseases in recent decades.

Wang Xiumin, a pediatrician specializing in endocrinology at United Family Healthcare in Shanghai, said respiratory and digestive diseases as well as injuries (resulting from insufficient care in families with several children) used to account for more than 90 percent of child diseases clinically, but this has changed in the 21st century.

The social environment has changed greatly, along with children's diets and lifestyles, and these factors have led to cases of sexual precocity rising significantly.

"The number of cases related to children's growth and development account for roughly 20 percent of the total number of child diseases at large medical institutions in China," Wang said.

"Now, the parents of some 30,000 children are seeking medical advice and treatment each year at grade A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai for their off-springs' growth and development. This is a rise of 260 percent compared with five years ago, and 500 percent compared with 10 years ago," she said.

In 2017, statistics from Peking University's School of Public Health showed that the incidence of child obesity had doubled in a decade, and the prevalence of sexual precocity rose threefold over the past 10 years.

"In the past, people used to hope to remain disease-free, but now, with the general rise in living conditions, they want far more than just to be healthy," Wang said.

She added that the increased parental focus on children's height is also the result of more attention being paid to minors' health and growth, which in turn will produce a healthier adult population.

"Advances in medical development and the increased awareness of diseases among the public will certainly result in hospitals seeing more patients in areas where there is disease," she said.

Li said: "We hope those unsatisfied with their height come to hospitals earlier. Typical examples at my clinic involve 13- or 14-year-old boys in middle adolescence, but in such cases there is limited scope for doctors to change the situation."