9 ms·

A century of trends in adult human height

94 points by abhi3 10y ago

talideon 10y ago
That's rather interesting. A little bit of anecdote: I'm Irish and come in at about 170cm. When I was younger and in college (around 2000), I was definitely just (and we're talking 1/2cm here) ever so slightly slightly above the norm, but now I'm definitely below it by most of a head. My generation was the last one that grew up in a relatively 'poor' Ireland, and I'm significantly taller than my father was. It'd be interesting to see that study with data from 2016. Edit: added some extra text to help quantify the difference I see.
- circlefavshape 10y ago
  Irish male here too, have gone from being around average in the early 90s to being noticeably below
- muddyrivers 10y ago
  Similar things happened in China. I was the last generation that grew up in poor China, in the sense that we were malnourished without sufficient intake of animal proteins when growing up (to be accurate, it is before we were 13~14 years old. After that, the living standard got a big jump.) Among ~200 of high school classmates who talk regularly with each other in a WeChat group, some have children of 16 years old or older. They all said their children are already much taller and stronger than they are.
passive 10y ago
I briefly read the domain as elfsciences.org and imagined a very different article.
- overcast 10y ago
  Well, it is related slightly regarding height. Overall disappointing domain name :)
  - lsh 10y ago
    we briefly considered constraining the scope of our published science to elves and the fey folk but the projected volume of submissions was disappointingly small and the board nixed it early. Refactoring the journal code from 'elfsciences.org' to 'elifesciences.org' was seen as an easy win for everybody. true story.
scholia 10y ago
American men were third tallest in 1914 and 37th tallest in 2014. The growth in the height of American men is the same as Mali, and similar to Burkina Faso. Senegal did better. Shouldn't the world's richest nation be doing better? PS There's a story that's easier to read at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/26/tall-story-men-and-women-have-grown-taller-over-last-century-study-shows https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/26/tall-story-m... The Guardian story says: "European countries now scoop the top 10 positions for height, with Dutch men and Latvian women the tallest for their sex. That, says Bentham (1), could be down to the introduction of a welfare state in many European countries." (1) co-author of the research from Imperial College, London
- drpgq 10y ago
  I think one obvious factor is immigration from shorter on average countries like Mexico and Central America.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  >The Guardian story says: "European countries now scoop the top 10 positions for height, with Dutch men and Latvian women the tallest for their sex. That, says Bentham (1), could be down to the introduction of a welfare state in many European countries." That fails to consider the obvious explanation - you are comparing small EU countries with low ethnic diversity, uniform lifestyle and high standard of living with stringent immigration to a huge ethnically diverse country with a huge immigration flow.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    "small EU countries with low ethnic diversity, uniform lifestyle and high standard of living" Maybe that's just The Solution?
    - dpc59 10y ago
      Poverty is part of America's growth fuel.
dumbmatter 10y ago
I wonder if Guatemalan women were really shorter than African pygmies, or they just didn't have data on pygmies. Either way, seems strange to write a long article about extreme heights and not even mention pygmies.
- drpgq 10y ago
  I'm guessing no data on pygmies. Probably no pygmy army conscription.
amarka 10y ago
>Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity I thought most researched suggested the opposite (ex http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/)
- huherto 10y ago
  May be it is true for populations but not for individuals ?
- Retric 10y ago
  At a guess: Populations get taller though improved nutrition and reduced disease risks. Those tend to be associated with a range of really good things. But, within a population nutrition and disease tend to rise and fall together so the negative impacts of height are more important. Alternatively, height is only apparent in your teen years, more people getting that far has huge impacts on overall longevity.
- chrischen 10y ago
  Yes this article doesn't seem to control for childhood nutrition.
- svachalek 10y ago
  And with higher earnings and education, it says, which smells a lot like they're not trying to isolate it as a factor. I'm pretty sure they could add that taller people are better at speaking English and get more vacation time than shorter people.
UVDMAS 10y ago
Can someone correlate this with economic growth?
- strictnein 10y ago
  Maybe
pimlottc 10y ago
Interactive versions of the data visualizations are available on the NCD RisC website: http://www.ncdrisc.org/v-height.html http://www.ncdrisc.org/v-height.html
gwern 10y ago
Keep in mind that there are a lot of racial and between-country differences in genetic height & weight: "Population genetic differentiation of height and body mass index across Europe" http://www.gwern.net/genetics/docs/genetics/2015-robinson.pdf http://www.gwern.net/genetics/docs/genetics/2015-robinson.pd... , Robinson et al 2015. So the Dutch are so tall in part because of their excellent social net and public health, yes, but they're still taller than some other comparable countries and that's reflecting genetics. As the environments improve, genetics becomes the limiting factor.
zkhalique 10y ago
"Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, lower risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and higher risk of some cancers" Didn't I read just the opposite in an article on Hacker News just a few hours ago? It claimed that researchers were mistaken in the past, yet the studies cited here are from the past 10 years. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ More balanced: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094385 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
- Artlav 10y ago
  Makes sense even on the naive level. The heart has to work harder, so the heart problems. Body volume is larger, therefore more chances for cancer.
  - Pica_soO 10y ago
    The solution seems obvious- we need a second heart. And enhanced ribcages to hold it
    - Artlav 10y ago
      The scariest thing is, it's only a matter of time before some biohacker would make this a reality.
      - smhost 10y ago
        The last I checked, they were surgically inserting magnets into their fingertips. Has there been any progress in the community?
    - witty_username 10y ago
      An artificial heart would be easier. There is no need for an enhanced ribcage; in heterotopic heart transplantation the old heart is not removed. [1] (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation#Heterotopic_procedure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation#Heteroto...
honkhonkpants 10y ago
World Wide Web, what happened to you? This article has figures and when you click on the figure, you get an animated light box and an animated progress spinner and then you are presented with a figure that's smaller than the original unreadable version you clicked in the first place. The WWW is supposed to be an information system, not a pile of useless animations. /rant
- cwbrandsma 10y ago
  Click the image, then use the "Open in new window" link at the bottom. (yes, still a pain)
coldcode 10y ago
Being 2m tall the only place I am below average height is NBA games. My father was 1.8m and his father was around 1.6 which covers the whole previous century and then some. Of course this is purely anecdotal. I wonder how many there are where the trend is reversed.
Artlav 10y ago
Interesting. I read previously that tallness is fairly dependent on good nutrition, which would correlate with overall increase in welfare/quality of life.
DisposableMike 10y ago
A single population group (South Korean women) with an average height increase of 20.2cm over 100 years is absolutely astounding (that's 8 inches for those of you using freedom units). That signifies an enormous improvement in nutrition and healthcare in a relatively short amount of time.
pennyhill 10y ago
You will find a require to much better realize why stature is different in several locations by various quantities, and make use of this data to better nutrition and health around the world. It will even be invaluable to grasp how much money evolving into bigger continues to be a major contributor to increased longevity and health throughout the world. And online sales on: http://www.crazysales.com.au/ http://www.crazysales.com.au/

94 points by abhi3 10y ago

That's rather interesting. A little bit of anecdote: I'm Irish and come in at about 170cm. When I was younger and in college (around 2000), I was definitely just (and we're talking 1/2cm here) ever so slightly slightly above the norm, but now I'm definitely below it by most of a head. My generation was the last one that grew up in a relatively 'poor' Ireland, and I'm significantly taller than my father was. It'd be interesting to see that study with data from 2016. Edit: added some extra text to help quantify the difference I see.

circlefavshape 10y ago
Irish male here too, have gone from being around average in the early 90s to being noticeably below
muddyrivers 10y ago
Similar things happened in China. I was the last generation that grew up in poor China, in the sense that we were malnourished without sufficient intake of animal proteins when growing up (to be accurate, it is before we were 13~14 years old. After that, the living standard got a big jump.) Among ~200 of high school classmates who talk regularly with each other in a WeChat group, some have children of 16 years old or older. They all said their children are already much taller and stronger than they are.

passive 10y ago

I briefly read the domain as elfsciences.org and imagined a very different article.

overcast 10y ago
Well, it is related slightly regarding height. Overall disappointing domain name :)
- lsh 10y ago
  we briefly considered constraining the scope of our published science to elves and the fey folk but the projected volume of submissions was disappointingly small and the board nixed it early. Refactoring the journal code from 'elfsciences.org' to 'elifesciences.org' was seen as an easy win for everybody. true story.

scholia 10y ago

American men were third tallest in 1914 and 37th tallest in 2014. The growth in the height of American men is the same as Mali, and similar to Burkina Faso. Senegal did better. Shouldn't the world's richest nation be doing better? PS There's a story that's easier to read at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/26/tall-story-men-and-women-have-grown-taller-over-last-century-study-shows https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/26/tall-story-m... The Guardian story says: "European countries now scoop the top 10 positions for height, with Dutch men and Latvian women the tallest for their sex. That, says Bentham (1), could be down to the introduction of a welfare state in many European countries." (1) co-author of the research from Imperial College, London

drpgq 10y ago
I think one obvious factor is immigration from shorter on average countries like Mexico and Central America.
rubber_duck 10y ago
>The Guardian story says: "European countries now scoop the top 10 positions for height, with Dutch men and Latvian women the tallest for their sex. That, says Bentham (1), could be down to the introduction of a welfare state in many European countries." That fails to consider the obvious explanation - you are comparing small EU countries with low ethnic diversity, uniform lifestyle and high standard of living with stringent immigration to a huge ethnically diverse country with a huge immigration flow.
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  "small EU countries with low ethnic diversity, uniform lifestyle and high standard of living" Maybe that's just The Solution?
  - dpc59 10y ago
    Poverty is part of America's growth fuel.

dumbmatter 10y ago

I wonder if Guatemalan women were really shorter than African pygmies, or they just didn't have data on pygmies. Either way, seems strange to write a long article about extreme heights and not even mention pygmies.

drpgq 10y ago
I'm guessing no data on pygmies. Probably no pygmy army conscription.

amarka 10y ago

>Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity I thought most researched suggested the opposite (ex http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/)

huherto 10y ago
May be it is true for populations but not for individuals ?
Retric 10y ago
At a guess: Populations get taller though improved nutrition and reduced disease risks. Those tend to be associated with a range of really good things. But, within a population nutrition and disease tend to rise and fall together so the negative impacts of height are more important. Alternatively, height is only apparent in your teen years, more people getting that far has huge impacts on overall longevity.
chrischen 10y ago
Yes this article doesn't seem to control for childhood nutrition.
svachalek 10y ago
And with higher earnings and education, it says, which smells a lot like they're not trying to isolate it as a factor. I'm pretty sure they could add that taller people are better at speaking English and get more vacation time than shorter people.

UVDMAS 10y ago

Can someone correlate this with economic growth?

strictnein 10y ago
Maybe

pimlottc 10y ago

Interactive versions of the data visualizations are available on the NCD RisC website: http://www.ncdrisc.org/v-height.html http://www.ncdrisc.org/v-height.html

gwern 10y ago

Keep in mind that there are a lot of racial and between-country differences in genetic height & weight: "Population genetic differentiation of height and body mass index across Europe" http://www.gwern.net/genetics/docs/genetics/2015-robinson.pdf http://www.gwern.net/genetics/docs/genetics/2015-robinson.pd... , Robinson et al 2015. So the Dutch are so tall in part because of their excellent social net and public health, yes, but they're still taller than some other comparable countries and that's reflecting genetics. As the environments improve, genetics becomes the limiting factor.

zkhalique 10y ago

"Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, lower risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and higher risk of some cancers" Didn't I read just the opposite in an article on Hacker News just a few hours ago? It claimed that researchers were mistaken in the past, yet the studies cited here are from the past 10 years. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ More balanced: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094385 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Artlav 10y ago
Makes sense even on the naive level. The heart has to work harder, so the heart problems. Body volume is larger, therefore more chances for cancer.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  The solution seems obvious- we need a second heart. And enhanced ribcages to hold it
  - Artlav 10y ago
    The scariest thing is, it's only a matter of time before some biohacker would make this a reality.
    - smhost 10y ago
      The last I checked, they were surgically inserting magnets into their fingertips. Has there been any progress in the community?
  - witty_username 10y ago
    An artificial heart would be easier. There is no need for an enhanced ribcage; in heterotopic heart transplantation the old heart is not removed. [1] (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation#Heterotopic_procedure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation#Heteroto...

honkhonkpants 10y ago

World Wide Web, what happened to you? This article has figures and when you click on the figure, you get an animated light box and an animated progress spinner and then you are presented with a figure that's smaller than the original unreadable version you clicked in the first place. The WWW is supposed to be an information system, not a pile of useless animations. /rant

cwbrandsma 10y ago
Click the image, then use the "Open in new window" link at the bottom. (yes, still a pain)

coldcode 10y ago

Being 2m tall the only place I am below average height is NBA games. My father was 1.8m and his father was around 1.6 which covers the whole previous century and then some. Of course this is purely anecdotal. I wonder how many there are where the trend is reversed.

Artlav 10y ago

Interesting. I read previously that tallness is fairly dependent on good nutrition, which would correlate with overall increase in welfare/quality of life.

DisposableMike 10y ago

A single population group (South Korean women) with an average height increase of 20.2cm over 100 years is absolutely astounding (that's 8 inches for those of you using freedom units). That signifies an enormous improvement in nutrition and healthcare in a relatively short amount of time.

pennyhill 10y ago

You will find a require to much better realize why stature is different in several locations by various quantities, and make use of this data to better nutrition and health around the world. It will even be invaluable to grasp how much money evolving into bigger continues to be a major contributor to increased longevity and health throughout the world. And online sales on: http://www.crazysales.com.au/ http://www.crazysales.com.au/