Is it true that the average height of the Human Race keeps increasing?
Okay, well, it is said that you usually grow taller than your parents, and a century ago, we were significantly smaller. If you put those two together, that is what it comes out to. Is it true, why?
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5:41 pm
May 11th, 2010
I am not sure if this is not biological, but I think has more to do with the fact that in past times people weren’t as well nourished; my dad biologically should be 6 ft, but hes only 5′8. Why? Well growing up in Greece after WW2 he was starving for the first 12 years of his life (very little food)
5:49 pm
May 11th, 2010
Here is an interesting article. Just read past the first bit about athletes and then it gets into some good facts and figures.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/11/1081621836499.html
5:51 pm
May 11th, 2010
Height is something that has a large hereditary factor. But height can also be affected by environment. A person living in poor conditions with inadequate food supply and substandard medical help is not going to reach their full height potential. Height is 90% heritable and usually a shorter mother indicates a shorter son and a taller father indicates a taller daughter.
The average height in the United States has been stagnant since the 1950s, largely due to the fact that our standard of living has improved as much as the environmental factors can that impact height. Looking at just the genetic components, it seems like people would get taller as time progresses, but this just doesn’t seem to be true. It seems that more the reason people weren’t taller a century ago was due to the environmental conditions that impacted their potential height and not a change in the genes they passes on. In other words, if they had proper nutrition they would have been taller. In fact, archeological and anthropological research shows that people in societies and cultures that had adequate supplies of food in their culture were the same height as people of today.
5:59 pm
May 11th, 2010
It’s due to better nutrition in childhood. Our kids get more protein than children did a couple of generations ago. As more people get better food in childhood, the perceived height increases will level off.