Dietary Change in Antebellum America

A Three‐Decade History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the Shrinking of the U.S. Population at the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

“…147 This is important, insofar as it also makes the disease explanation less likely if different segments of the society experienced the onset of the decline in nutritional status at different times. (Gallman, 1996). Several independent sources of evidence have verified what is commonly called the 'antebellum paradox' .…”

“…Gallman's main criticism was that Komlos did not consider inventories of food products held on farms. 95 In his response, Komlos pointed out that inventories would have been too small to affect the results. 96 Furthermore, inventories were essentially immaterial for nutritionally important, protein-rich perishables such as dairy products.…”

A Three-Decade 'Kuhnian' History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the Shrinking of the US Population at the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

“…As late as 2009 Steckel wrote, "Margo and Steckel, who discovered [sic] that heights declined after 1830 in the United States, initially questioned whether the cycle was genuine, as did Robert Gallman some 15 years later (Gallman, 1996). Several independent sources of evidence have verified what is commonly called the 'antebellum paradox' [sic: puzzle] (Komlos, 1996;Komlos and Coclanis, 1997;Carson, 2008b;Maloney and Carson, 2008), or the decline in height and life expectancy in the midst of vigorous economic growth, and research now focuses on its possible causes.…”

Longitudinal Studies of Human Growth and Health: A Review of Recent Historical Research

“…The physical stature of successive cohorts of students entering the West Point military academy declined in spite of rapid economic growth before the Civil War. In a broad sense, the potential causes of the decline in stature – reduced calories relative to physical requirements for daily activities and fighting disease – are agreed upon, but in this case as in others it has proven challenging to identify with precision the relative importance of different influences (Gallman, 1996; Komlos, 1996; Coelho and McGuire, 2000; Steckel, 2000). The inferential problems discussed earlier mean that assessing the relative contribution of diet, disease and workload to changes in stature is demanding of both data and method (Haines et al , 2003).…”