The medications are known to reduce appetite. We live in a society where kids are growing taller than their parents, girls reach menarche sooner than their mothers, etc. Improved nutrition means we have healthier children, as a rule.
And now, we're increasingly finding, in Western society, problems with childhood obesity.
What I'm saying - we are in a state of change, in terms of national nutrition and children's growth.
Where appetite is suppressed (and this happens more with some than others) you run the RISK of it also hampering vertical growth too. We generally accept that calories in = calories out. I think it is more complex than that, but we'll let it ride for now. The thing is, if you reduce the calories in, also reducing the nutrition (such as less dairy overall, for example) then this is going to have an impact on growth. It may be miniscule, especially considering the upward trend we've observed in recent generations, but we need to know of the likelihood so we can take it on board with all the other benefits/drawbacks.
If you are a heavier person and also have an adequate intake of calcium, your skeleton will be stronger than a slimmer person's, because it is automatically doing more load-bearing exercise (just by carrying around the extra weight). A really slim child is often at greater risk of a broken bone - not only because they have less padding, but their bones simply haven't needed the extra strength - they're doing OK, why lay down extra bone when the calcium may be needed elsewhere in the body? Our bodies are efficient utilisers of resources and try not to waste energy/resources needlessly.
A young girl of my acquaintance - very slender. I suspect a certain amount of ADHD in the family too, unmedicated. her older brother is very impulsive, rushes around everywhere. Plenty of load-bearing exercise as he climbs trees, wields a hammer & chisel, jumps off walls etc. Young sister was playing on the school gym equipment, was hanging from a parallel bar over soft-fall (shredded rubber tyres) and let go to fall 6" - spiral fracture of her leg, tibia & fibula. Why? Nothing wrong medically, except that her skeleton was still very much under construction at age 8.
She's in high school now - plays basketball. Her parents got her into more active sport once her leg healed, to help build up her bones.
So a slimmer person could, for various reasons, aslo end up slightly shorter than they should have been. Or maybe not as strong. Or just about any variation on slightly reduced nutrition/calories.
Or they may not. It depends on so many variables. If the fewer calories they eat do include enough of the vital building blocks, then t hey should still reach their projected height.
Statistics are about looking at large numbers, to get an overall picture. In this overall picture of kids growing up on stimulants, a number of these kids will still be getting enough nutrition; but as a group, there will be fewer in this group than in the unmedicated group. There will be more in the group where they're getting enough calories to get by, and MOST of their required nutrition, but maybe end up a cm or so shorter than they should have been.
And there may be more in the group where even unmedicated, they may have not got enough proper nutrition anyway, but now are even worse off with reduced appetite thrown into the mix.
I guess for us it's also more complex because we have to contend with food sensitivities and faddishness. difficult child 3 won't eat anything with a creamy texture; easy child 2/difficult child 2 won't eat anything with 'bits' in it, so no biscuits or cakes or anything else with nuts in it. She will eat nuts alone, but not IN anything. Neither of them will eat mushrooms. BF2 craves meat but prefers chicken. husband hates too much chicken and wants his red meat. easy child 2/difficult child 2 refuses to eat stew and only eats a tiny amount anyway.
They need to eat fruit - husband can't eat more than one small tomato a day, no other fruit or he gets mouth ulcers. A taste of very ripe pineapple, preferably cooked. A small slice of kiwi fruit - a segment or two of mandarin. Not much else. Meanwhile difficult child 3 & I can eat oranges by the dozen. Same with kiwifruit. The kids WILL eat fruit but won't get it themselves. If I make up a fruit platter, it will disappear.
I asked difficult child 3 yesterday (who needs more fibre at the moment) if he wanted some kiwifruit as well as the orange segments he was eating. "No thanks," he said. But I'd already begun to cut it up so I put it on his plate, intending to eat it myself if necessary. he ate it happily, I don't think he even noticed.
I think what a lot of this boils down to, is if your kid is on stimulants, and if you think they're not eating properly/enough, then put the food in front of them - food you know they will eat, but also food you know their bodies need. Chances are they'll eat it once it's there.
Marg