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Growth as a Target-Seeking Function

Catch-up and Catch-down Growth in Man

  • Chapter
Human Growth

Abstract

A striking and fundamental property of human growth is that it is self-stabilizing or, to take another analogy, target-seeking. Children, no less than rockets, have their trajectories, governed by the control systems of their genetic constitution and powered by the energy absorbed from the environment. Deflect the child from its natural growth trajectory by acute malnutrition or a sudden lack of a hormone, and a restoring force develops, so that as soon as the missing food or the absent hormone is supplied again, the child hastens to catch up toward its original growth curve. When it gets there, the child slows down again, to adjust its path onto the old trajectory once more.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Growth and Development, Institute of Child Health, University of London, WC1N 2EH, London, England

    J. M. Tanner

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  1. J. M. Tanner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    Frank Falkner

  2. School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Frank Falkner

  3. Institute of Child Health, University of London, London, England

    J. M. Tanner

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© 1986 Plenum Press, New York

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Tanner, J.M. (1986). Growth as a Target-Seeking Function. In: Falkner, F., Tanner, J.M. (eds) Human Growth. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2101-9_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2101-9_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9244-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2101-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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