Health and lifespan of Swiss men born in an alpine region in 1905–1907

Ziegler, Ella; Postma, Erik; Matthes, Katarina L.; Floris, Joël; Staub, Kaspar

doi:10.1080/1081602x.2022.2100806

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Ziegler et al ( 2023 - this issue) present a different perspective on height’s relationship to mortality, and underscore that this relationship may vary by context. The authors use a sample of men conscripted from 1925 to 1927, from Glarus, a canton in the Swiss Alpine region.…”

Section: The Articles In This Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Casting shadows: later-life outcomes of stature

Kok

Quanjer

Thompson

2023

The History of the Family

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The central question in this special issue is a relatively new one in anthropometric history: how did body height affect the life course? This raises the issue of whether such an effect merely captures the underlying early-life conditions that impact growth, or whether some independent effect of stature can be discerned. Further, the effects of height on later-life outcomes need not be linear. These effects may also differ by gender, by context (time and place), and among life course domains such as occupational success, family formation or health in later life. The ten research articles in this issue use a plethora of historical sources on individuals, such as prison and hospital records, conscript records, genealogies and health surveys. These articles employ a variety of methods to distinguish between early-life and later-life effects, between intra- and intergenerational processes and between biological and socio-economic factors. Importantly, all articles discuss the impact of the specific context on their results to understand these effects. The overall conclusion is that independent later-life outcomes of height are rather ambiguous, and seem to stem more from the perception of physical strength, health and intelligence associated with height than from height itself. This special issue also reflects on intergenerational effects of the later-life outcomes of height. As populations have grown taller, it is possible that height and later-life outcomes have formed a ‘virtuous cycle’, resulting in taller, healthier and wealthier populations. So far, however, our research offers little support for this hypothesis.

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Section: The Articles In This Issuementioning

confidence: 99%