It's the hormones in milk and beef nowadays. BGH is making our kids into beasts.

6'1, 237#, 9%BF in 5^th grade. I was done growing by the time I graduated from middle school at 6'3" 255# which was my HS and college football playing weight. After college, with a 4kCal appetite and no longer a 4-5-hour/day athlete, I ballooned.

Pab hit it on the head, it's probably the result of BGH, though the massive amount of N₂ in the farmland-soil uphill (I grew up at the bottom of a mountain, the entire mountainside above us is tiered farmland. Now my parents live at the top of the mountain.) from me probably helped. Every kid for 1/4mi around me was massive by age 12 and done growing by age 15. My brother D is the smallest of the bunch at 5'11" 165, the same height he was in 6^th grade, though 50# lighter then. Crash tipped the scales at 6'1 and 200# in HS.

(It was cool in HS when we were man-sized playing ball against teenagers. Now we're just fat.)

He's 6'0 and a little over 200. He can palm a basketball. His hands and feet are bigger than his dad's. He needs to shave every few weeks. He's only had organic milk all his life. He plays football & basketball (no baseball).

I think everyone matures differently, that's all.

...but he is about a head taller than most of his classmates.

I just thought 12 seemed like an early age for the growth spurt. Plus this kid looks like a man amongst boys

my nephews was humungous like that at a young age.

Funny thing, too...

My brother and his wife got him into Taekwon Do classes.

He was doing well with it until the class got into kicking and hurling each other around, and the smaller students were doing it to him, figuring he could take more because he's bigger.

He didn't like it and wanted to quit.

8th grade there was a classmate who was 5'10" and about 180# who was the stud athlete in our class. He was shaving and was more mature than everyone else. I was probably about 5'8" and 120#. By the time we were seniors he was still 5'10" and 180# and I was 6'2" and 200#. I was no longer afraid to tackle him in football. He was no longer the star football and basketball player either.

I had a nephew who was about 6' and 200# at age 12. He is now 6'3" and a 300# college football center.