Towards an anthropometric history of latin America in the second half of the twentieth century

Abstract

We examine the evolution of adult female heights in twelve Latin American countries during the second half of the twentieth century based on demographic health surveys and related surveys compiled from national and international organizations. Only countries with more than one survey were included, allowing us to cross-examine surveys and correct for biases. We first show that average height varies significantly according to location, from 148.3cm in Guatemala to 158.8cm in Haiti. The evolution of heights over these decades behaves like indicators of human development, showing a steady increase of 2.6cm from the 1950s to the 1990s. Such gains compare favorably to other developing regions of the world, but not so much with recently developed countries. Height gains were not evenly distributed in the region, however. Countries that achieved higher levels of income, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, gained on average 0.9cm per decade, while countries with shrinking economies, such as Haiti and Guatemala, only gained 0.25cm per decade.

The Height of Children and Adolescents in Colombia. A Review of More than Sixty Years of Anthropometric Studies, 1957–2020

“…From these studies, it is known that the average height of Chilean children and adolescents increases between 0.9 and 1.3 cm per decade, depending on their social class [5]. These results are very similar to those found in studies about the evolution of height in adults in the 20th century [6,7].…”

The Escape from Malnutrition of Chilean Boys and Girls: Height-for-Age Z Scores in Late XIX and XX Centuries

“…Although a large share of the earlier literature focused on more developed or industrialized western countries, recently there has been many works devoted to the biological standard of living in the past in other regions, and in Iberian and Latin American countries in particular. This research agenda has produced a substantial long-term, comparative overview (mostly of the 19th and 20th centuries) of the biological well-being in the Iberian and Latin American region and its relationship with inequality and economic and social development [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Significant research has been done recently on various aspects of biological well-being especially in some of the largest countries of the region such as Argentina [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ], Brazil [ 10 , 11 ], Chile [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ], Colombia [ 17 , 18 ], Mexico [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], Peru [ 5 ] and Spain [ 23 , 24 ].…”

Stunting Rates in a Food-Rich Country: The Argentine Pampas from the 1850s to the 1950s

“…For the last twenty years, Anthropometric History has produced a rich set of publications about the biological wellbeing of diverse populations in the Latin American past [1][2][3]. First in the agenda was the quest for new data to generate long-term estimates of average heights [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”