Sizing Up Our Health

If you’re an older adult standing among a crowd of young people right now, chances are you’re feeling pretty short. Millennials and Generation Z seem to have some height on them. (Have you tried buying jeans recently? If pant length is any indication — it’s got to be true.)

But we may be as tall as we’ll get as a nation. A new study looking at a century of trends in human height shows that the average stature of 18-year-old men has fallen over the past 20 years.

“We urgently need to address children’s environments and nutrition,” say researchers.

Women topped out years ago — in 1988.

The numbers, just published in eLife, were based on a comprehensive global study of 18.6 million young adult men and women in 200 countries between 1914 and 2014.

“People from different countries grow to different heights,” the study authors wrote. “This may be partly due to genetics, but most differences in height between countries have other causes. For example, children and adolescents who are malnourished, or who suffer from serious diseases, will generally be shorter as adults. This is important because taller people generally live longer, are less likely to suffer from heart disease and stroke; and taller women and their children are less likely to have complications during and after birth.”

Taller people, they added, may also earn more and be more successful at school — yet they’re also more likely to develop certain cancers.

[lz_bulleted_list title=”Presidential Height Index” source=”http://www.usnews.com”]Since 1900, the taller of the two candidates has won the presidential election 19 times, while the shorter candidate has won just eight times — and that includes the year 2000 in which George W. Bush, the shorter candidate, didn’t win the popular vote against the taller Al Gore. In two of these elections, candidates were the same height.[/lz_bulleted_list]

The analysis revealed big differences in height between countries. The tallest men were born in the last part of the 20th century in the Netherlands, and were about six feet tall on average. The shortest women were born in 1896 in Guatemala, and were roughly 4.5 feet tall.

South Korean women and Iranian men made the biggest gains in height, while the U.S. — one of the “tallest” countries a century ago — fell behind most European countries and Australia in terms of height gain.

The researchers say the findings indicate there are major differences between countries in terms of nutrition and the risk of developing some diseases.

“This study gives us a picture of the health of nations over the past century, and reveals that the average height of some nations may even be shrinking while others continue to grow taller,” said Majid Ezzati, a professor from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, in a statement.

“This confirms we urgently need to address children and adolescents’ environment and nutrition on a global scale, and ensure we’re giving the world’s children the best possible start in life.”

Ezzati, also the lead author, said, “Our study shows the English-speaking world, especially the USA, is falling behind other high-income nations in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Together with the poor performance of these countries in terms of obesity, this emphasizes the need for more effective policies toward healthy nutrition throughout life.”

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