Effects of inheritance and environment on the heights of brothers in nineteenth-century Belgium (original) (raw)
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The History of the Family, 2016
This paper compares the statures of men during late adolescence, measured at age 19, with the stature in adulthood, measured at age 25, specially focusing on the influences of household situation and family stress. On average, the men studied became five centimeters taller in the interval, but there was a large individual variation as the shortest men realized the largest 'catch-up' growth. We study how childhood deprivation impacted on growth in adolescence. Childhood deprivation was measured, apart from socioeconomic status and social cultural characteristics of the household, through family size, number of siblings, mortality clustering in the family, and certain characteristics of the mother. In particular, we are interested in the question whether these early-life experiences had a lasting effect, in other words to what extent they were still visible at age 25 and to what extent they influenced the potential for catch-up growth. Our results indicate that the independent influence of family composition was very weak. When comparing temporary and lasting effects on male stature, we see that in general the influences of socioeconomic status and sociocultural factors were, although weaker, still visible at age 25. The results also make clear, that the height at the age of 19 is a better, more sensitive, indicator for the circumstances in which a child grew up. The results of this exercise should be interpreted with caution, as they are based on a small number of cases.
Annals of human biology, 2015
Applying sexual stature dimorphism (SSD) to history and the social sciences faces the difficulty of disentangling nature from nurture in addition to the limitations of sources (e.g. small, fragmented or heterogeneous samples). To investigate the relationship between inter-generational changes and social differences in SSD and the evolution of living conditions in 20th-century Spain. Self-reported height and socio-demographic information from individuals born 1910-1979 (n = 99,023) were drawn from health interview surveys. Weighed least squares regression was used to construct continuous time-cohort series of SSD for the entire population and for specific socioeconomic groups represented by levels of educational attainment. SSD remained below modern values among cohorts that were exposed to structural deprivation at pre-adult ages. Socioeconomic status mediated the correction of these deviations among subsequent cohorts. Lower classes (less educated segments of the population) system...
Genetic and environmental influences on adult human height across birth cohorts from 1886 to 1994
eLife, 2016
Human height variation is determined by genetic and environmental factors, but it remains unclear whether their influences differ across birth-year cohorts. We conducted an individual-based pooled analysis of 40 twin cohorts including 143,390 complete twin pairs born 1886-1994. Although genetic variance showed a generally increasing trend across the birth-year cohorts, heritability estimates (0.69-0.84 in men and 0.53-0.78 in women) did not present any clear pattern of secular changes. Comparing geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia), total height variance was greatest in North America and Australia and lowest in East Asia, but no clear pattern in the heritability estimates across the birth-year cohorts emerged. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that heritability of height is lower in populations with low living standards than in affluent populations, nor that heritability of height will increase within a population as living standards improve.
Did family size affect differences in body height in non-urbanized societies? Evidence from the Lemko community in Poland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 2019
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of economic changes in the Polish territories under Austrian partition at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries on the trend in adult body height, and to examine the effect of number of children in a family, as a socioeconomic factor, on the differences in heights of males and females. Data collected in a 1939 survey for a group of 350 Lemkos living in Polish lands under the Austrian partition were obtained from archive material. Individual data were obtained for body height and number of siblings, to calculate family size. Linear regression analysis confirmed an increase in body height in males by about 1.2 cm per decade over the period 1860 to 1922. The number of children in a family did not appear to influence the mean body height of men and women. The observed positive mean body height trend probably resulted from the improvement in the economic conditions in the Austrian sector over the survey period.
INTER-GENERATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT AND BODY HEIGHT
This study investigates the association between body height and inter-generational social advancement through education. Questionnaire data were collected from 2800 students (1023 men and 1777 women) from the universities of Wrocław, Poland. The questions referred to three generations: the students and their parents and grandparents. Information was collected on the age, body height and weight of the students and their parents, and on the parents' and grandparents' education. The lowest body heights were typically found for individuals from families with the lowest educational levels, whereas the greatest body heights were found for those brought up in families with a high educational status or in families who had upgraded their status. The size of the change in the educational level of parents is only associated with fathers' and female students' body height. Individuals who had advanced from a middle educational level or who came from families with this type of advancement were found to be significantly taller, on average, than those upgrading their educational level from the lowest position. The results show that, for men, educational advancement during the course of their lives or in the earlier generation is more favourable to achieving higher stature, whereas for women, the multi-generational tradition of a high educational status is of greater significance.
The History of the Family, 2016
This paper is intended as a contribution to the debate on the determinants of physical stature in the past and it specifically investigates whether, in Sardinia, height − considered as a proxy of the share of household resources allocated to a child's growth − was influenced by the number of brothers and sisters amongst whom parents had to distribute available resources. This study is limited to the male population, because military records represent the only source at our disposal providing historical data on height. The community studied is the town of Alghero, located on the northwestern coast of Sardinia, at the turn of the twentieth century. We have adopted a longitudinal approach, thanks to the rich dataset reconstructed for Alghero, using different sources including family, socioeconomic and anthropometric indicators. The results, in line with the resource dilution hypothesis, show that competition within the household was of some importance and that the effects on height due to scarcity of resources were particularly evident amongst farmers, the most representative socioeconomic status group in Alghero. A significant contribution to the stature reached in adulthood was also given by the socioeconomic status of the family or else by other individual characteristics.
Economics & Human Biology, 2012
We analyze the first representative series of individual measurements of the height of Swiss conscripts for the years 1875-1950. We find that average height followed a general upward time trend, but the economic downturn in the 1880s slowed down the increase in rural average-heights while the economic crisis subsequent to World War I had only a minor effect. Moreover, social-class affiliation was the most important determinant of differences in the biological standard of living, with class and regional disparities remaining constant, for the most part, during the observation period. Lower-class individuals' ability to overcome economic stress was limited, with the result that their biological standard of living, as reflected in the cyclicality of deviations from average height, was likely to be affected by cycles in economic activity.
Sibship Size, Height and Cohort Selection: A Methodological Approach
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This article deals with the historical relationship between the number of siblings in a family or household and height, a proxy for biological living standards. Ideally, this relationship is better assessed when we have evidence on the exact number of siblings in a family from its constitution onwards. However, this generally requires applying family reconstitution techniques, which, unfortunately, is not always possible. In this latter case, scholars must generally settle for considering only particular benchmark years using population censuses, from which family and household structures are derived. These data are then linked to the height data for the young males of the family or household. Height data are generally obtained from military records. In this matching process, several decisions have to be taken, which, in turn, are determined by source availability and the number of available observations. Using data from late 19th-century Catalonia, we explore whether the methodolog...
Does adult stature capture conditions at birth or at some other stage in the growth cycle? Anthropometrics is lauded as a method for capturing net nutritional status over all the growing years. However, it is frequently assumed that conditions at birth were most influential. Was this true for historical populations? This paper examines the heights of Belgian men born between 1800-76 to tease apart which moments of growth were most sensitive to disruption and reflected in final heights. It exploits two proximate crises in 1846-49 and 1853-56 as shocks that permit age effects to be revealed. These are affirmed through a study of food prices and death rates. Both approaches suggest a shift of the critical moment away from the first few years of life and towards the adolescent growth spurt as the most influential on terminal stature. Furthermore, just as height is accumulated over the growing years, conditions influencing growth need to be understood cumulatively. Economic conditions at the time of birth were not explanatory, but their collective effects from ages 11 to 18 years were strongly influential. Then, both health and nutrition mattered, in shifting degrees. Teenagers, not toddlers, should be our guides to the past.