Our bodies grow taller and taller for years or decades across all mammals then suddenly just stop. We can gain or lose weight, this applies to mammals like whales that don’t live on land or worry about gravity the same, and it can vary from person to person (or elephant to elephant) the exact height.
In: Biology
During childhood and puberty your body makes a lot of growth hormones. Then puberty ends and it really slows down making them.
We’re not sure how the body knows when to start puberty or when to stop.
Your body keeps making some growth hormones that would cause you to slowly get taller except… around that time the “growth plates” on your bones seal. This is your bones turning off their ability to get longer.
The cartilage parts of your body keep growing slowly. This is why older folks have larger ears and noses.
The other user talked about the mechanism behind it all, and I want to talk about the reason. Different mammals are optimized for different sizes. If they grow beyond that optimal size, their health becomes negatively affected. For example, there are large dog breeds that typically experience bad arthritis because their joints aren’t made for carrying that much weight and get worn down more quickly than other breeds.
I also want to mention a condition that affects humans, called gigantism, which occurs when too much growth hormone is produced during childhood. Because of the larger than normal concentrations of the hormone, the growth plates at the ends of the bones develop at a greater rate. The bones grow faster, causing people with gigantism to get to 7 or 8 feet tall by the end of puberty, unless they get medical intervention. Literally giants.
Like the larger dog breeds, giants develop joint issues because of their greater weight, as well as back problems. They typically don’t live past 40 years because their hearts become overworked pumping blood up that extra height. They generally do not have have a good time of things.
What I’m getting at is that, in order for a mammal to be successful at a larger size, it has to have multiple different adaptations that allow them to survive that way. If they don’t have the adaptations, the ones that are too big die more quickly.
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