Growth as a Measure of the Nutritional and Hygienic Status of a Population

Abstract

The history of the use of children’s growth as a measure of the nutrition and hygiene of a population since the early 19th century is outlined. Secular trends towards greater height and earlier maturity are reported; the increase in adult height in British men born between 1900 and 1946 averaged about 1.25 cm/decade and in those born between 1946 and 1960 0.6 cm/decade, according to the data of Kuh et al. [Int J Epidemiol 1991;20:1001-1009]. Social class differences in height persist in the UK, amounting to almost 2 cm between the well off and the unskilled. The average height of subgroups of most populations serves well as a proxy for their health status and relates to their mortality rate.

Zmienność międzypokoleniowa zdolności siłowych dzieci z trzech aglomeracji Małopolski w kontekście ich rozwoju somatycznego i psychicznego

“…In the case of children living in the small town or in the village there was a tendency to outgrow their peers from the research conducted 30 years earlier. It should also be noted that a different intergenerational variability rhythm occurred in body height between 4 and 14 years of age than was found in highly developed countries [20][21][22][23]. As was noted in the Introduction, the intergenerational variability during the 10-year period varied during the progressive development stage and reached: 1.5 cm before puberty, 2.5 cm during puberty, and 1 cm after puberty [2,20,21].…”

“…Tanner, in his works [20,21,22,23,24,25], points out the strong connection between the secular trends of body height and the improvement in society life conditions, health, and nourishment. Such connections are called an "auxology epidemic" [20,21], or a "litmus paper of social changes in time" [1,25].…”

Secular changes in body height and weight of Portuguese boys over one century

“…Colégio Militar boys experienced the greatest increase in body size after [1961][1962][1963][1964][1965][1966], indicating that the children who were born after the late 1960s and 1970s were the ones who were growing better. Several studies suggest that early life is the critical period where environmental influences have their greatest impact (Cole, 2000;Golden, 1994;Schmidt et al, 1995;Tanner, 1992;Zellner et al, 1996). Therefore, these children were the ones who benefited first from improvements in social and economic conditions that initiated in the 1960s, and then by political changes in the 1970s that promoted further progress and were responsible for further increases in body size.…”

Relative effect of genetic and environmental factors on body height: differences across birth cohorts among Finnish men and women

“…13 In developed countries, the greatest differences have been found between birth cohorts. 14 In societies with a low standard of living, heritability is likely to be lower than in affluent societies because of the stronger effect of environmental factors. Mueller 15 compared parent-child correlations for body height in 24 previous studies.…”