Michael Hermanussen

Michael Hermanussen (born 1955 in Hamburg) is a German pediatrician and professor at the University of Kiel, known for his work on child growth and nutrition. He studied medicine and worked as a pediatrician at Kiel from 1982 until 1989, researching growth and child development (auxology), and first described mini growth spurts. He developed new mathematical methods for diagnosing growth disorders, a technique for estimating final adult height, and mini-knemometry, which measures lower leg length accurately enough to show growth within days and helped improve growth hormone therapy. Later work turned to nutrition and obesity, including the effect of monosodium glutamate on appetite, and to the argument that stunting is socially conditioned rather than a simple sign of malnutrition. He founded the Auxological Society and co-edits Human Biology and Public Health.