Fewer children leads to growth spurt among European men, says research

European men have grown by an average of 11cm in the last century thanks to better food, less disease — and having fewer children.

The University of Essex in Britain studied average height in 21-year-old men from the 1870s to 1980, and discovered it had risen from 167cm to 178cm.

“Although average height has fluctuated across the centuries, the increase since the late 19th century has been truly unprecedented,” said the research lead author, Timothy Hatton.

“Increases in human stature are a key indicator of improvements in the average health of populations.”

There were fluctuations in height increase depending on the part of the continent examined. For example, in Sweden, the increase was only 10cm, but that was from 170cm to 180cm. However, in Spain, while the increase was greater at 12cm, it was from 164cm to 176cm.

The researchers were able to ascertain that, in northern and middle European countries, including Ireland and Britain, there was a “distinct quickening” in growth in the period spanning the world wars and the Great Depression. They said this period largely predated modern medicine and national health services.

Nonetheless, the researchers said improvements in the “disease environment”, reflected by a decreased infant mortality rate, was the single most important factor driving the increase in height, particularly during the trans-war period.

Another major factor was an improved diet.

“Recent studies have shown that proximity to sources of basic foods such as grain, vegetables, milk and butter, and meat products had significant effects on height, and this explains much of the height advantage of rural communities,” the report’s authors said.

“Urbanisation increased the distance between consumers and sources of supply but transport improvements, especially the railways from the late 19th century, and improvements in the storage and processing of highly perishable protein sources, such as fresh milk, progressively improved the supply to the cities.”

The researchers also concluded that family size contributed to the growth. “Because the focus is on conditions during childhood, family structure matters, too,” said the authors. “If there is a trade-off between the quality, as measured by health, and the quantity of children, then a decrease in family size could lead to an increase in height.”

The authors said a population’s genes played no role in the increase.

The said: “Although genetic inheritance explains most of the differences between individuals, evolution of the aggregate gene pool cannot account for substantial increases in mean stature over four or five generations.

“If anything, one would expect that Darwinian selection would have been less important in the 20th century than previously.”

The study only looked at men, the researchers said, because extensive historical data on women’s heights is hard to come by.