Ms. Seo spends $770 a month on treatments for her daughter and her 4-year-old son at one such clinic, Hamsoa, which has 50 branches across the country and offers a mix of acupuncture, aromatherapy and a twice-a-day tonic that contains deer antler, ginseng and other medicinal herbs.

“Parents would rather add 10 centimeters to their children’s stature than bequeath them one billion won,” said Dr. Shin Dong-gil, a Hamsoa doctor, invoking a figure in Korean currency equal to about $850,000. “If you think of a child as a tree, what we try to do here is to provide it with the right soil, the right wind, the right sunshine to help it grow. We help kids regain their appetite, sleep well and stay fit so they can grow better.”

Koreans used to value what was perceived as a grittiness on the part of shorter people. “A smaller pepper is hotter,” according to a saying here, and one need look no further for proof than to the former South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee, or across the demilitarized zone to the North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il, who claims to be 5-foot-5 (but adds inches with elevator shoes and a bouffant hairstyle).

But smaller is no longer considered better, thanks in part to the proliferation of Western models of beauty and success. “Nowadays, children scoff if you mention Napoleon and Park Chung-hee,” said Park Ki-won, who runs the Seojung Growth Clinic. “On TV, all young pop idols are tall. Given our society’s strong tendency to fit into the group and follow the trend, being short is a problem. Short kids are ostracized.”

Concerns about the trend are growing, too, with some groups warning that growth clinics, while operating within the limits of the law, promise far more than the evidence supports.