Should he take a nutritional supplement such as creatine to increase his muscle?
It is important to realize that teens grow and develop at different rates. Your son may be smaller than the other boys because he has not experienced his growth spurt yet (he is a “late bloomer”). Nutritional supplements will not help speed this process along. Boys usually enter puberty, that time when the body goes through changes to become an adult, somewhere between 11 and 14 years of age, but their growth spurts happen at the end of puberty and it can take up to five years to complete the whole process. (In girls, the peak growth period occurs about one year after puberty has begun.) However, if your son has not shown any signs of pubertal development by age 15, or he has but you still are concerned, you should make an appointment with his pediatrician to be checked. Many teens, especially athletes, want to be bigger and stronger. Your son may come to you and ask you about taking nutritional supplements to make him bigger. He may hear about professional athletes or have friends who
