Sex, Socio-economic Status, and Secular Increase in Stature

Abstract

The evidence that each succeeding generation of children in Western Europe is taller than its pre- decessor has been accumulating (Boyne and Leitch, 1954; Hulse, 1957; Boyne, 1960; Tanner, 1962) and the question has been raised whether this phenome- non is primarily due to improvement of the en- vironment during childhood, or to heterosis (British Medical Journal, 1961). If, as we believe, environ- ment plays an important part in the secular increase in stature, then the extent to which children are taller than their parents should be related to the material benefits enjoyed by these children which were not available to their parents. The present paper describes a study in which the stature of men, women, and their children from the Rhondda Fach in South Wales is compared with that of London families in the upper income groups. The Welsh parents, for some or all of their childhood, were exposed to the privations of the economic depression of 1930s, but their children were born in more prosperous times since 1945. In contrast, the parents in the London sample did not suffer unduly in the late 1920s and 1930s and their children too enjoyed relative prosperity.