Secular changes in the heights of British people

Abstract

Abstract An inquiry has been completed recently involving comparisons of all the best records of heights of British adolescents and adults. They cover the period from about 1850 to the present day, and far more males than females are represented. The main object of the inquiry was to find out any changes there may have been in the age curve for height during the past hundred years. It is commonly supposed that the general situation regarding this question is known. The best records for British series of children are in good agreement in showing that height standards for particular ages were improving from decade to decade, if not from year to year. The latest generation was repeatedly found to have the highest mean heights for school years of age, and this secular trend was persistent. It has often been supposed that British people generally were becoming taller, so that the age curve for a filial generation would be found to be above that for the parental generation throughout the whole age range from birth to the oldest ages. But this is an inference based on the records for children and it might be incorrect. An alternative possibility is that there was a secular change in the rate of growth but that more rapid growth was associated with the attainment of maturity at a younger age; the faster growing children when mature might be no taller or shorter on the average than their parents were. The question could be examined directly by comparing the records collected at different times relating to the last stage of growth and adult years of life. The evidence has to be treated by making detailed comparisons of data for a considerable number of series and subseries of people. In this brief account of the inquiry it is only possible to indicate the more important general considerations involved and the principal results obtained. The records referred to are for a total of more than two million British men. The material is of a miscellaneous kind. It is due chiefly to various official and other bodies and to independent research workers whose activities were not co-ordinated. The need for a national anthropometric survey has often been advocated in this country, but one has never been established.