A new analysis of Child Measurement Programme data from England, Scotland, and Wales challenges recent reports suggesting children in Britain are getting shorter. The analysis, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, reveals that average child height has increased over the past two decades. But these gains are not related to improved child health, the researchers
Being overweight or obese causes hormonal changes, which accelerate children’s development. Obese children grow faster, so they tend to be taller than their healthy-weight peers.
That’s the tl;dr