Background WHO documents characterize stunting as, "…impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation." The equation of stunting with malnutrition is common. This contrasts with historic and modern observations indicating that growth in height is largely independent of the extent and nature of the diet. Subjects We measured 1716 Indonesian children, aged 6.0-13.2 years, from urban Kupang/West-Timor and rural Soe/West-Timor, urban Ubud/Bali, and rural Marbau/North Sumatra. We clinically assessed signs of malnutrition and skin infections. Results There was no relevant correlation between nutritional status (indicated by skinfold thickness) and height SDS (hSDS). 53% of boys, and 46% girls in rural Soe were short and thin, with no meaningful association between mean of triceps and subscapular skinfolds (x ̅ SF) and height. Skinfold thickness was close to German values. Shortest and tallest children did not differ relevantly in skinfold thickness. The same applied for the association between hSDS and mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) using linear mixed effects models with both fixed and random effects. 35.6% boys and 29.2% girls in urban Ubud were overweight; 21.4% boys and 12.4% girls obese, but with hSDS =-0.3, still short. Relevant associations between hSDS and x ̅ SF and MUAC were only found among the overweight urban children confirming that growth is accelerated in overweight and obese children. There were no visible clinical signs of malnutrition in the stunted children. Conclusion The present data seriously question the concept of stunting as prima facie evidence of malnutrition and chronic infection.

There is a common perception that tall stature results in social dominance. Evidence in meerkats suggests that social dominance itself may be a strong stimulus for growth. Relative size serves as the signal for individuals to induce . We construct a thought experiment to explore the potential consequences of the question: is stature a social signal also in humans? We hypothesize that (1) upward trends in height in the lower social strata are perceived as social challenges yielding similar though attenuated upward trends in the dominant strata, and that (2) democratization, but also periods of political turmoil that facilitate upward mobility of the lower strata, are accompanied by upward trends in height. We reanalyzed large sets of height data of European conscripts born between 1856-1860 and 1976-1980; and annual data of German military conscripts, born between 1965 and 1985, with information on height and school education. Taller stature is associated with higher socioeconomic status. Historic populations show larger height differences between social strata that tend to diminish in the more recent populations. German height data suggest that both democratization, and periods of political turmoil facilitating upward mobility of the lower social strata are accompanied by a general upward height spiral that captures the whole population. We consider stature as a signal. Nutrition, health, general living conditions and care giving are essential prerequisites for growth, yet not to maximize stature, but to allow for its function as a lifelong social signal. Considering stature as a social signal provides an elegant explanation of the rapid height adjustments observed in migrants, of the hitherto unexplained clustering of body height in modern and historic cohorts of military conscripts, and of the parallelism between changes in political conditions, and secular trends in adult human height since the 19 century.

adolescence, childhood, life history, menopause, senescence | I N TR ODU C TI ONFor this Centennial Perspective, we write about the ways that historical literature has influenced our own current set of understandings of human physical growth and development and our hypotheses of how the human pattern of growth evolved. Four historical events and premises structure our current approach to understanding growth in the context of human life history:1. the discovery that there exists a constant interplay between evolution with physical growth and development; 2. the recognition of novel features of human growth and development, and several ways these may be organized into a continuum of ontogenetic events; 3. evidence that human life course biology establishes the foundation for the capacity for human culture and biocultural reproduction; 4. the interactive nature of human life course biology with the social, economic, and political environment.For each we discuss the basic ideas we currently deploy and how those came into being, drawing on historical theory and especially on articles published in the AJPA and Yearbook of Physical Anthropology (YPA). At first glance, our four events and premises may seem disparate, but we hope to show that they are interrelated and, essentially, different facets of a common human biology. We do not expect all readers to agree with our approach, but we hope that by laying out our broader theoretical rationale we will stimulate new research. In addition, newer AJPA readers may learn something useful about the career-long process of personal theorybuilding as they plan their own professional life course of research, which is the basis of the discipline as it will be 100 years hence.Our essay is not an exhaustive review, rather it highlights some critical research and scholarship and mentions research by the current authors where appropriate ("all is vanity" Ecclesiastes 1:2). | TH E IN TE RP L A Y B ETWE EN E V OLU TI ON WI TH P HY S I CA L G ROWTH A N D DE V EL OP M EN TThe great lesson that comes from thinking of organisms as life cycles is that it is the life cycle, not just the adult, that evolves (Bonner, 1993, p. 93).The study of biological growth in relation to evolution has a venerable history. D'arcy Thompson (1860Thompson ( -1948 used mathematics and principles of mechanics to show in a formal and scientific manner the physical and geometrical constraints of developmental biology within which evolution could operate (Thompson, 1917). Thompson took issue with natural selection as the only force of evolution and as the primary "lathe of evolution", that is, the process that shapes biological form to any functional adaptation. Instead, he argued that some biolog-

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Socially, economically, politically and emotionally (SEPE) disadvantaged children are shorter than children from affluent background. In view of previous work on the lack of association between nutrition and child growth, we performed a study in urban schoolchildren. We measured 723 children (5.83 to 13.83 years); Kupang, Indonesia; three schools with different social background. We investigated anthropometric data, clinical signs of malnutrition, physical fitness, parental education, and household equipment. Subjective self-confidence was assessed by the MacArthur test. The prevalence of stunting was between 8.5% and 46.8%. Clinical signs of under- or malnutrition were absent even in the most underprivileged children. There was no delay in tooth eruption. Underprivileged children are physically fitter than the wealthy. The correlation between height and state of nutrition (BMI_SDS, skinfold_SDS, MUAC_SDS) ranged between r = 0.69 (p < 0.01) and r = 0.43 (p < 0.01) in private school children, and between r = 0.07 (ns) and r = 0.32 (p < 0.01) in the underprivileged children. Maternal education interacted with height in affluent (r = 0.20, p < 0.01) and in underprivileged children (r = 0.20, p < 0.01). The shortness of SEPE disadvantaged children was not associated with anthropometric and clinical signs of malnutrition, nor with delay in physical development. Stunting is a complex phenomenon and may be considered a synonym of social disadvantage and poor parental education.

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Objectives: The association between body height and social status is known. We were interested in the effect of intergeneration changes in social status on height. Methods: Body height was measured in 2008 paternal grandfather-father-son and 1803 paternal grandfather-father-daughter triplets. The sample consisted of four child cohorts born in 1988, 1985, 1983, and 1980, and was measured annually from 6 to 11, 9 to 14, 11 to 16, and 14 to 18 years of age. Triplets were dichotomized according to grandfathers' occupation, into one "lower" and one "upper" grandparental class; and according to paternal education, into one "lower" and "upper" paternal class, resulting in four "family histories": two nonmobile (grandfathers and fathers stayed in the same social class), and two mobile histories (social class of fathers and grandfathers differed). Results: "Upper" class fathers are taller than "lower" class fathers. This class effect on height persists into the third generation. Upward social mobility ("lower" class fathers receive secondary or university education) results in taller stature both in the fathers and in the children. The opposite applies for downward social mobility. "Upper" class fathers with only basic or vocational education lose the social advantage and remain shorter. So do their children. Conclusions: The class effect on height tends to persist into the next generation, but depends on education. Upward social mobility measured as a "better" education, results in taller stature, up to the third generation. The study highlights the importance of education as a major regulator of body height.

Objectives: Human body height differs within a wide range and has conventionally been associated with genetic, nutritional, and environmental conditions. In this study, we try to broaden this perspective and add the evolutionary aspect of height differences. Sample and Method: We revisited height from archeological data (10 000-1000 BC), and historical growth studies . We analyzed height, weight, and skinfold thickness of 1666 Indonesian schoolchildren from six representative rural and urban elementary schools in Bali and West Timor with a stunting prevalence of up to 50%. Results: Stature in the Holocene prehistory of the Near East and Europe varied with maxima for women usually ranging below 160 cm, and maxima for men between 165 and 170 cm. Stature never rose above 170 cm. European and white US-American schoolchildren of the 19th and 20th century were generally short with average height ranging between À1.5 and À2.2 hSDS, yet in the absence of any evidence of chronic or recurrent undernutrition or frequent illness, poverty, or disadvantageous living conditions. The same is found in contemporary Indonesian schoolchildren. Conclusion:Stunting is frequently observed not only in the poor, but also in affluent and well-nourished social strata last 10 000 years. Only in very recent history, and only in a few democratic, modern societies, stature has increased beyond the long-lasting historic height average. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, and considering adaptive plasticity of and community effects on growth, competitive growth and strategic growth adjustments, stunting appears to be the natural condition of human height.