A century of trends in adult human height

Abstract

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3–19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8–144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13410.001

The Impact of Adolescent Obesity on Adult Height

“…However, the secular height trend faded in many European countries [24]. We do not have current information on the secular height trend in Israel and its relation to overnutrition.…”

World Perspective on the Epidemiology of Stunting between 1990 and 2015

“…In some Southern European and many Latin American countries where gains are still being made in socioeconomic conditions, heights have not yet plateaued and continue to increase. Conversely, height decreases or consistent short stature persist in many LMIC between 1896 and 1996 [10]. In a detailed country analysis of India between 1975 and 2013, adult height increases are similar to those seen in developed countries.…”

“…Increasing adult height in various populations is reported extensively in the literature [10]. A recent paper of over 18.6 million participants in 1,472 population studies which analyzed measurements of height found that adult height increased substantially between 1896 and 1996, but this was unevenly distributed between men and women and amongst countries [10].…”

Brain structure mediates the association between height and cognitive ability

“…Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) are regulators of childhood physical growth (Butler and Le Roith 2001) but are also implicated in brain development including brain growth and cortical maturation (D'Ercole et al 1996;Narducci et al 2018). Higher IGF-1 levels have also been reported to be associated with higher GCA (Gunnell et al 2005).…”