The association between male height and lifespan in rural Spain, birth cohorts 1835-1939

Secular trends and regional pattern in body height of Austrian conscripts born between 1961 and 2002

The human growth process is influenced not only by genetic factors but also by environmental factors. Therefore, regional differences in mean body heights may exist within a population or a state. In the present study, we described and evaluated the regional trends in mean body heights in the nine Austrian provinces over a period spanning more than four decades. Body height data of 1734569 male conscripts born in Austria with Austrian citizenship between 1961 and 2002 were anonymized and analyzed. From 1961 to 2002 birth cohorts, an overall increase in the mean body height of Austrian recruits was observed, although regional differences were evident. Regions with shorter body heights in the 1961-1963 birth cohorts showed a particularly pronounced increase in mean body heights. Meanwhile, the course of body height growth in the capital city, Vienna, was striking, where the highest body heights were documented for the 1961-1963 birth cohorts. In Vienna, mean body heights continued to decline until the 1984 birth cohort and increased again from the 1988 birth cohorts. In addition to economic factors, increased stress factors in an urban environment and a form of urban penalty are discussed as causes.

Analyzing the effects of the Spanish Civil War on biological well-being through new anthropometric indicators

Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of severe economic shocks (such as those associated with wars) on the growth of children and adolescents. Individuals exposed to these shocks during their developmental years exhibited shorter average heights compared to both previous and subsequent generations. Anthropometric research has highlighted the sensitivity of the height variable in understanding the biological well-being of children and adolescents. However, little attention has been paid to the evolution of other anthropometric variables. This study investigates the impact of the famine following the Spanish Civil War on biological well-being in nine municipalities of the Region of Valencia (with over 120,000 observations of individuals born between 1890 and 1955) using two indicators: chest circumference, and the percentage of individuals of short stature. Our findings confirm that both of these anthropometric indicators were responsive to the economic shock of the Civil War. The well-being levels prior to the war took 20 years to recover.

Stunting and wasting in a growing economy: biological living standards in Portugal during the twentieth century

Portugal's real income per head grew by a factor of eight during the second half of the twentieth century, a period of fast convergence towards Western European living standards. We use a new sample of about 3,400 infants and children living in Lisbon to document trends in the prevalence of stunting and wasting between 1906 and 1994. We find that stunting and wasting fell quickly from around 1950, for both males and females. We additionally use a sample of more than 26,000 young adult males covering the entire country, which shows a consistent decrease in wasting and stunting with the expected time lag. We discuss these trends in relation to changes in income and public policy, which affected the ontogenetic environment of children. Sustained progress began well before the introduction of democracy.

Height and political activism in rural Aragón (Spain) during the 20th century. A new perspective using individual-level data

This article explores the relationship between the political leanings of more than 1000 men born in the 1870-1970 s in 11 rural Aragonese villages and their biological well-being during childhood and adolescence, proxied by height. The aim is to test whether an individual was more likely to be left-wing if his level of biological well-being was lower and, therefore, with more incentives to fight against the social inequality that had negatively affected his family. Our results confirm that, for most of the study period, there was a strong relationship between shorter height and political activism1 in left-wing parties and organizations.

Casting shadows: later-life outcomes of stature

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.

Do the short die young? Evidence from a large sample of deceased Polish adults

Body height is associated with various socioeconomic and health-related outcomes. Despite numerous studies, the relationship between stature and longevity remains uncertain. This study explores the association between self-reported height and lifespan. Data from 848,860 adults who died between 2004 and 2008 in Poland were collected. After excluding a small proportion of records due to missing data or errors, we examined records for 848,387 individuals (483,281 men, age range: 20–110 years; 365,106 women, age range: 20–112 years). Height was expressed as standardized residual variance derived from linear regression in order to eliminate the variance of year of birth on height. After the elimination of the cohort effect, five height classes were designated using centiles: very short, short, medium, tall and very tall. The differences between sexes and among classes were evaluated with two-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s test. The effect size was assessed using partial eta squared (η2). Pearson’s r coefficients of correlation were calculated. The effect of sex on lifespan was nearly 17 times stronger than the effect of height. No correlation between height and lifespan was found. In conclusion, these findings do not support the hypothesis that taller people have a longevity advantage. We offer tentative explanations for the obtained results.

The effect of height on family formation in rural Spain, birth-cohorts 1835-1975

This article examines the relationship between the height of adult males and marital outcomes, including likelihood of marrying, age at marriage, and marital fertility, in rural Spain. For this analysis, a sample of 4,501 men born between 1835 and 1975 living in 14 villages in northeastern Spain was taken. Previous research has shown that shorter individuals are less likely to marry. However, it is still disputed whether differences exist in the timing of marrying based on height, and little attention has been paid to the effect(s) of height on offspring. Family data were obtained from parish records and interviews with individuals and their families, while height data were obtained from military records, with individuals in Spain being conscripted at the age of 21 years. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results confirm that shorter individuals were less likely to marry. Individuals of medium and medium-high height were the first to marry, with a small gap between them and shorter individuals. With regard to marital fertility, no difference in terms of average fertility by height were found, but there were small differences in timing of childbirth, possibly as a result of delayed marriage.

Biological Well-Being and Inequality in Canary Islands: Lanzarote (Cohorts 1886-1982)

Developments in anthropometric history in the Iberian Peninsula have been remarkable in recent decades. In contrast, we barely know about the behavior of insular population groups and infants' and adults' growth during the nutritional transition in the Canary Islands. This paper analyzes the height, weight and body mass index of military recruits (conscripts) in a rural municipality from the eastern Canaries during the economic modernization process throughout the 20th century. The case study (municipality of San Bartolomé (SB) in Lanzarote, the island closest to the African continent) uses anthropometric data of military recruits from 1907-2001 (cohorts from 1886 to 1982). The final sample is composed of 1921 recruits' records that were measured and weighed at the ages of 19-21 years old when adolescent growth had finished. The long-term anthropometric study is carried out using two approaches: a malnutrition and growth retardation approach and an inequality perspective. In the first one, we use the methodology recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) that is based on z-scores. In the second one, we implement several inequality dimensions such as the coefficient of variation (CV), percentiles and an analysis for height and BMI evolution by five socioeconomic categories. The data suggest that improvements in biological well-being were due to advances in nutrition since the 1960s. They show that infant nutrition is sensitively associated with economic growth and demographic and epidemiological changes.