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Height, malnutrition and post-communistic countries


Wjolcz

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Let's not make this political.

The background: Me and my family had an argument about whether height is determined by growth hormones in food or by the availability of food in the envirnoment. They think it's the hormones and their argument was that the youth "back in their days" (<- about 30 years ago) wasn't as tall as it is now. Now, because I live in Poland (which is a post-communist country) I made a connection with North Korea, where people live in much harder conditions and don't eat as much as they should, therefore, their average height has decreased (by about 8cm according to BBC website) since the peninsula got split by the DMZ. Also this.

Adding growth hormones to all sorts of foods makes sense when it comes to its production. The world population is growing and if food grows faster then it can be harvested sooner and sold, then be grown again in the same green house.

However, what I know is that species of animals grow bigger or shrink over longer periods of time (a few generations) depending on how much food is available in the environment. Since humans are also a kind of an animal, they adapt (and AFAIK we are one of the fastest adapting animal species on this planet) It makes sense that the average height would increase when there are more vitamins and proteins available and decrease when food is scarce.

So how much is it due to the lifestyle and how much due to these dreadful hormones? Or maybe both? Was a research made?

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As an American historian, I can tell you this from a non-political background. In Jamestown, British American colonialists had the same basic statistics (height, weight, lifespan) as their European counterparts. By 1625, these statistics changed. Average lifespan of a man (in Jamestown) was 37, height was 5'3" ( 1.6002 m), and weighed about 128 pounds (58.05 Kg). Their European counterparts had a lifespan of 48, height and weight was roughly the same. By 1700, this shifted again - the American colonial average lifespan was 59 years, height was 5'7" (1.7018 m) and weight was roughly 145 pounds (65.77 Kg) while the average European male remained basically unchanged since 1625.

Why were British Americans so much larger than their European counterparts? Diet. The American diet was rich in proteins, natural fibers from fresh fruits and vegetables, and very little grain-based foods (until around 1750). The European diet (for the average person, not the aristocracy or nobility) was high in fats, low in proteins, but high in grains. This was because hunting was considered as illegal, meat (such as chicken and pork) were expensive. 

There's been extensive research into the physical difference between British Americans and their British counterparts between 1625 and 1776. The better and more varied Colonial American diet (once self-sustaining settlement status was reached) had a dramatic impact within one generation.

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1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

Let's not make this political.

The background: Me and my family had an argument about whether height is determined by growth hormones in food or by the availability of food in the envirnoment.

Growth hormones make people fat, not taller. On a short term variations in body height in local populations are caused by nutrition especially in the growth phase (too late for me :-)). This can clearly be derived from historical data (Edit: @adsii1970 got an example). Isotopes from bones give hints to state of nutrition, their size indices are a hint to body height. Over longer term and across different populations there is of course a genetic base as well. Like long tall Massai and short stout Inuit (i know, a generalization, but a tendency as well). Climate is also suspected to have an influence.

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... "back in their days" (<- about 30 years ago) wasn't as tall as it is now. Now, because I live in Poland ...

Clearly nutrition, and a little lifestyle. Our parents had to work (most of them) ;-)

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However, what I know is that species of animals grow bigger or shrink over longer periods of time (a few generations) depending on how much food is available in the environment.

Partly. Household animal's reproduction completely underlies human control. They are fed by humans and the ones for reproduction are selected by humans. Finding a generalization here is difficult ...

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Since humans are also a kind of an animal, they adapt (and AFAIK we are one of the fastest adapting animal species on this planet) It makes sense that the average height would increase when there are more vitamins and proteins available and decrease when food is scarce.

Yes. The metabolism adapts quite quickly, not only as a species (because of the large number and genetic variety) but also as an individual, modification of the body due to lifestyle, nutrition, training, ... Underfed people are smaller (in general) than big fat westerners and an athlete is stronger than i am :-)

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So how much is it due to the lifestyle and how much due to these dreadful hormones? Or maybe both? Was a research made?

I am sure there is PLENTY of research in the journals. Historical and archaeological data is also available in quantity.

 

 

Edit: size of wild living species is not only determined by nutrition (short term, lifespan), but also genetic. Size of population to bearing capacity of environment, a large organism confined to a small area will either become extinct or grow smaller because the smaller ones have an advantage over the larger individuals, they often don't find enough to eat to support a big body. Directional selection in island populations.

Edited by Green Baron
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Here, the most marked difference would be overall size : most people "from the city" would be larger than those from the villages. Exceptions exists, but the average goes that way. Height is quite unchanged, but most children growing in the city tends to be taller. Not sure about now or any other time really, as the difference narrows and/or one data source became scarce...

For sure, we don't really look into statures :sticktongue:

Japanese increase in stature after WWII ? How do they manage the population density ?

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11 minutes ago, tater said:

It is my understanding that stature increased in Japan in decades after WW2 as well, largely due to nutritional differences. 

Yes it makes sense, think all countries in Europe had an increase after ww2 too but less. 

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The linked Homo floresiensis wikipedia article is a very bad example. We know little about that side line, but it is not a small homo sapiens, it was a species of its own ! What anthropologists have thought since the first reports:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/hobbit-was-separate-species-human-new-dating-reveals

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1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

The linked Homo floresiensis wikipedia article is a very bad example. We know little about that side line, but it is not a small homo sapiens, it was a species of its own ! What anthropologists have thought since the first reports:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/hobbit-was-separate-species-human-new-dating-reveals

Yeah, sorry about that. It was the first thing I thought of when making the thread.

I've learnt some new things today. Thanks a bunch, guys.

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Comparing the population of Netherlands and Japan, which is probably fed enough well, we obviously see that genetics defines the limit, while nutrition limits the approaching to this limit.

P.S.

3 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Why were British Americans so much larger than their European counterparts?

Dutch landing?  :D

Edited by kerbiloid
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3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Comparing the population of Netherlands and Japan, which is probably fed enough well, we obviously see that genetics defines the limit, while nutrition limits the approaching to this limit.

P.S.

Dutch landing?  :D

They probably ate better than the British but worse than the Americans who lived in an pretty empty land ad most of the natives had died of diseases.
Enough food is an recent thing, it was famines in western Europe during the 19th century, the civilized world was pretty overpopulated, that is not true today as its more than enough food. 

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5 hours ago, Veeltch said:

Yeah, sorry about that. It was the first thing I thought of when making the thread.

I've learnt some new things today. Thanks a bunch, guys.

That is so cool !

An example for that island population thing is the woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius that grew as large as the asian elephant. It became extinct on the mainland at the end of the ice age, together with the large herds of cold steppe animals. But a few survived on siberian islands until ~4000 ago(*), they managed to "downsize" in very small indiviuals that could maintain a large enough population to keep sufficient variety in the gene pool.

Where is my cute little mammoth ? :-))

Another and more lurid example are the huge dinosaurs that had enough space and time to evolve on a supercontinent. They grew smaller with the breakup of the continents and narrowing of the niches over a long time. The last ones (well, if you call 2-3m "dino" ...) made it to early paleogene, long after the chicxulub impact.

 

(*) haven't had a deeper look into since almost 10 years. Maybe there is new data ....

 

Edited by Green Baron
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I was born in 1975 in still-communist Poland too - i'm 176 centimeters tall. My 15 years old nephew is 184 cm tall already :D So yes, i'd say there is a significant difference LOL. Jokes aside, i'm pretty sure that differences in lifestyle, diet, quality of medical care and genetic factors play much bigger role in human organism development than hormonal food additives. Consider the food variety alone - North Korea does not participate in broad, international trade. As such, her citizens do have access only to articles they can grow or produce locally. I pretty much doubt you can go to NK, store and buy comparatively wide array of products that you can find in any not - NK supermarket. Bananas, citrus fruits, grapes, coffee and countless other items we take for granted, all come from countries that do not trade with NK. Seasonal variety counts too: during winter you can only grow so much vegetables in climate - controlled greenhouses. Iif you want them widely available to help your population stay well fed and healthy, you must buy the rest from warmer countries, that can grow them year - round. No fresh veggies - your people get less vitamins and microelements, defficiences of which will harm their organisms. Which can lead to... this:

9e8f6835886a932b995d3a83cabc60d8.jpg

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lol That looks like a Tintin comic from Hergé out of another time

Now, size doesn't matter (that much) among humans, cultural implications have a much bigger part. Even if it does not look like on the photo it may well be that the small guy has just attached the two big ones and is leading them away. Wasn't that funny ?

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Oh, believe me - i know :) At mere 176 cm i'm certainly not a giant - and yet some people i work with (mostly women, granted) reach only about to my shoulder :confused: And i know for a fact most of them came from normal, middle-class families that certainly didn't starve them in childhood. Genes are a big factor in how we'll turn out.

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13 hours ago, magnemoe said:

They probably ate better than the British but worse than the Americans who lived in an pretty empty land ad most of the natives had died of diseases.
Enough food is an recent thing, it was famines in western Europe during the 19th century, the civilized world was pretty overpopulated, that is not true today as its more than enough food. 

That would explain "catching up," but it doesn't explain becoming the tallest people in the world (with the trend line of average height not showing any flattening or slowing down the yearly increase in average height).

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23 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Afaik, all peoples get ~10 cm taller since they leave the poor medieval to XIX century diet and begin eating like in late XX.

That is true. There are original medieval\early Renaissance plate armours in museal collections. Modern man wouldn't be able to wear them, because they're too small (especially helmets :D ). There are also very old homes across the Europe - i've been inside one almost 300 years old. Doorframes and ceilings were uncomfortably close to the top of my head :)

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7 minutes ago, Scotius said:

There are also very old homes across the Europe - i've been inside one almost 300 years old. Doorframes and ceilings were uncomfortably close to the top of my head :)

That's interesting, didn't know about the doors/ceilings.
(Plates could be, say, teenagers' toy plates, but unlikely they built special house for children.)

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38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Afaik, all peoples get ~10 cm taller since they leave the poor medieval to XIX century diet and begin eating like in late XX.

It varies and since the end of the medieval >500 years have past (depending on the measurement), with huge changes. Climate deterioration in 1600-1750, the plagues, wars over hundred years all were suboptimal. Industrialization was nice only for a very few.

Late medieval was a nice time for a decent living to many, i wouldn't want to mess with one of the last knights. Much of the fuzz began after 1500.

It is not as homogeneous. Speaking about western europe for example, in early medieval people in france, switzerland, germany, ... were as tall as today. Nice and warm climate back then :-) But it can vary within single generations and small geographic areas.

 

Edited by Green Baron
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4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

That's interesting, didn't know about the doors/ceilings.
(Plates could be, say, teenagers' toy plates, but unlikely they built special house for children.)

300 years ago might have been rough times in the area, but houses in european cities followed tax rules as well, they were only allowed so much area and storeys and things (local differences !) ....

 

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I hope you'll forgive me for applying some interpretation to the story...

On 5/12/2017 at 8:28 AM, Veeltch said:

Me and my family had an argument about whether height is determined by growth hormones in food or by the availability of food in the envirnoment. They think it's the hormones and their argument was that the youth "back in their days" (<- about 30 years ago) wasn't as tall as it is now.

It sounds like this started with someone from your family claiming that agricultural use of growth hormones cause an increase in the body size of populations consuming that food, and you responded that it was dietary changes instead. In syllogistic form:

  1. Eating more makes you bigger
  2. Therefore agricultural growth hormones do not affect you

I'm afraid that argument is fallacious. It's possible for both of these factors to contribute (or not contribute) to organism growth. It's even possible that they interact positively or negatively (diet+hormones > either alone, or diet+hormones < either alone). Comments confirming that a better diet makes a bigger body are not addressing this disagreement.

On 5/12/2017 at 8:28 AM, Veeltch said:

Now, because I live in Poland (which is a post-communist country) I made a connection with North Korea, where people live in much harder conditions and don't eat as much as they should, therefore, their average height has decreased (by about 8cm according to BBC website) since the peninsula got split by the DMZ.

This doesn't quite help either side of the argument, because the DPRK (and pre-1990 Poland) probably also uses less agricultural growth hormone, it being first-world agricultural high technology.

On 5/12/2017 at 8:28 AM, Veeltch said:

Adding growth hormones to all sorts of foods makes sense when it comes to its production. The world population is growing and if food grows faster then it can be harvested sooner and sold, then be grown again in the same green house.

Agreed, but that doesn't tell us anything about the effects it may or may not have on consumers.

On 5/12/2017 at 8:28 AM, Veeltch said:

So how much is it due to the lifestyle and how much due to these dreadful hormones? Or maybe both? Was a research made?

I doubt there's research that could settle the question easily, as ethical standards would reject an experimental design proposing to limit the food intake of a population for 18+ years, and growth hormones tend to correlate with increased food availability in the statistics we have from real populations. Maybe you could establish that well-fed populations in the decades before growth hormones were invented had the same average height as well-fed populations now.

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