Family structure and childhood anthropometry in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1918

Abstract

Concern with childhood nutrition prompted numerous surveys of children’s growth in the United States after 1870. The Children’s Bureau’s 1918 “Weighing and Measuring Test” measured two million children to produce the first official American growth norms. Individual data for 14,000 children survives from the Saint Paul, Minnesota survey whose stature closely approximated national norms. As well as anthropometry the survey recorded exact ages, street address and full name. These variables allow linkage to the 1920 census to obtain demographic and socioeconomic information. We matched 72% of children to census families creating a sample of nearly 10,000 children. Children in the entire survey (linked set) averaged 0.74 (0.72) standard deviations below modern WHO height-for-age standards, and 0.48 (0.46) standard deviations below modern weight-for-age norms. Sibship size strongly influenced height-for-age, and had weaker influence on weight-for-age. Each additional child six or underreduced height-for-age scores by 0.07 standard deviations (95% CI: −0.03, 0.11). Teenage siblings had little effect on height-forage. Social class effects were substantial. Children of laborers averaged half a standard deviation shorter than children of professionals. Family structure and socio-economic status had compounding impacts on children’s stature.

Height, Chest Size, and Household Composition in Late-Nineteenth-Century Catalonia

“…There is also evidence that sibship size stunted the growth of British children also in the second half of the twentieth century (Kuh and Wadsworth 1989). In continental Europe most studies also document an historical negative association between family size and height, with evidence coming from East Germany (Baten and Böhm 2010), France (Olivier and Devigne 1983), Italy (Mazzoni et al 2017), Sweden (Cernerud 1993), the Netherlands (Bras et al 2010;Stradford et al 2017;Van Bavel et al 2011), and also outside Europe, in the United States (Roberts and Warren 2017). Beyond the historical literature, there is also evidence that in more recent decades sibship size is also negatively associated with children's growth in the developing countries (Desai 1995;Jordan et al 2012).…”

Association of number of siblings, birth order, and thinness in 3- to 12-year-old children: a population-based cross-sectional study in Shanghai, China

“…Thinness is an indicator of recent undernutrition and eating disorders and often is associated with physical, mental, and intellectual development problems, as well as a higher risk of metabolic disease in adulthood [ 8 – 10 ]. Families play a vital role in the intervention of children with undernutrition, and studies have reported that family structure affects childhood physical development [ 11 – 13 ]. In one-child families, parents and grandparents pay all their attention to their single child or grandchild.…”

Testing the conditional resource-dilution hypothesis: the impact of sibship size and composition on infant and child mortality in the Netherlands, 1863–1910

“…The argument is mainly based on the relation between sibship size, income and nutritional dilution, crowding and the higher chances of infection in larger families (Bailey, Hatton, & Inwood, 2016;Hatton, 2017). Yet results are mixed: some studies found a significant negative effect of the number of siblings on the height of individuals (De Keyser & Van Rossem, 2017;Mazzoni, Breschi, Manfredini, Pozzi, & Ruiu, 2017;Myrskylä, Silventoinen, Jelenkovic, Tynelius, & Rasmussen, 2013;Roberts & Warren, 2017;Stradford, van Poppel, & Lumey, 2017), while others found effects which are weak or disappear over time (Beekink & Kok, 2017;Öberg, 2015;Poulain, Chambre, Herm, & Pes, 2017;Ramon-Muñoz & Ramon-Muñoz, 2017). The latter argued that the changing role of sibship size could be caused by fertility decline, the general improvement of standards of living, the development of the welfare state, and improving health.…”