A really common myth that is repeated a lot is that coffee stunts your growth. This myth has been repeated a lot mainly by parents as an excuse to not let them drink coffee. This myth has been proven otherwise by many studies. According to Sites.Psu.Edu, an experiment was conducted on 81 teenagers. They were tracked over the course of 6 years. They split the teenagers into two groups, one that drank lots of coffee, and the other that drank very little coffee. After the 6 year time period, there was no difference of note between the bone masses of both groups. Growing up, I heard this all of the time as a reason why I could not drink coffee. This may have made me biased while researching this myth.
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theperpetualadventurer
January 28, 2021
This is awesome! Great job finding and citing a experiment and identifying a bias! I wonder what other factors were involved that they couldn’t control for? 81 participants is a good number to draw a conclusion from though.
livmadeleineD.
February 3, 2021
Love this! My mom used to say this all the time!
avarandall
February 8, 2021
Good to know! Was the main reasoning behind the myth due to parents discouraging caffeine? If so, I wonder if there is any difference between the growth of teenagers who eliminate all caffeine versus those who intake a lot, since coffee isn’t the only source of it.
nicolebautista
May 10, 2021
I am so glad that you used this myth. Other people may have used this myth because coffee makes you feel alive and gets rid of your sleepiness. Therefore, sleeping for a short amount of time could be the reason why growth is being stunted. However, is that proven? It would be nice to find out if sleep affects your growth!