Shrinking average height of black women in the US (Nutrition? Poverty?)

[n2doc]

By Tom Hundley | Tribune reporter
December 25, 2008
Call her The Incredible Shrinking African-American Woman.

In an age when the adult populations of most industrialized nations have grown significantly taller, the average height of black women in the U.S. has been receding, beginning with those born in the late 1960s.

The difference in stature between white women and black women has now stretched to three-quarters of an inch and appears to be increasing, according to newly released data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The main culprit appears to be diet.

The average height of a black woman born in the 1980s is just under 5 feet 4 inches; her mother, born in the 1960s, is more than half an inch taller. Even her grandmother, born in the 1940s, is a bit taller. The average white woman born in the 1980s is about half an inch taller than her mother.

The gap is "truly phenomenal," according to John Komlos, an economist and historian who has made a specialty of studying human heights. "Such a steep decline is practically unprecedented in modern U.S. history."

You have to go back to the antebellum South to find a similar shrinkage. The generation of white men born in the 1840s who experienced the ravages of the Civil War lost nearly an inch to their Northern counterparts, Komlos said.

A Chicago native who is a professor at the University of Munich, Komlos made a name for himself several years ago when his research revealed that the average height of adult Americans, once the tallest folk to roam the planet, had stopped rising after World War II and has since been surpassed by that of several European nations. The Dutch now lay claim to the title of tallest.

Komlos' latest findings, based on the NHANES data, suggest that after nearly 25 years of stagnation, the average height of adult Americans born from 1975 to 1986 has edged up again—with the exception of black women, whose height is moving in the opposite direction.

The reason this matters, according to Komlos, is because "height is a very good overall indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment."

more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-black-women-shrinkingdec25,0,2562107.story

[Captain Hilts]

1. African immigration? Most Ethiopians I know are quite short. Fascinating.

I know that Hispanic immigration has slowed growth in average height in the US.

[malaise]

2. Very interesting study

Thanks for this.

[w8liftinglady]

3. recommending...I predict within the next few years,we will see many effects of poverty/hunger

in the United States...inculding vitamin deficiencies,rickets,and autoimmune disorders.

[elehhhhna]

4. has the age of the mom at the time of their births been factored?

might be an interesting corollary there...

[elehhhhna]

7. low birth weight? is that accounted for?

[Richard D]

5. Vitamin D?

Recent research is showing that the MDAR for Vitamin D to be far too low. Dark skin is an adaptation to equatorial levels of sunlight. So dark skinned people would need far more sun than a white skinned person to produce sufficient Vitamin D. Non-tropical sunlight is far weaker than equatorial sunlight in its effect on producing Vitamin D. Also, far less time is spent in the sun in the US than would be true in Africa or Meso-America. So I'd hazard to posit that dark-skinned people in the US likely suffer from chronic vitamin D deficiency. Not to mention the lack of good food sources in many of the poorer neighborhoods and the preponderance of fast-food outlets.

[aikoaiko]

6. I blame it on hip hop culture

Always calling black women shorties.

;)

[Warpy]

8. All Americans are shrinking slightly

or at least not keeping up with their European cousins. I'm talking about a study that was done some years ago that saw Europeans getting taller while Americans of European stock were not.

It's not nutrition. It's access to health care.