TALLER AND HEAVIER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 10

TALLER AND HEAVIER.

N.Z. CHILDREN FILL OUT. STATISTICS FOR 13 YEABM. rST FAVOUR OF CHILD OF TO-DAY. Over in Victoria some of the piynel culture people have been getting anxious about a decrease in the height of the coming generation of girls. One wmnin who had been taking observations for years at her school of physical culture, said she was sure the girl of to-diT was shorter and broader than the girl of fifteen years ago. Variation in the race is a matter that can be decided only by scientific methods. There is nothing people make more mistakes about than their own kind. Science is the one thing that decides many points. Ethnologists nowadays realise the value of scientifically taken measurements in settling questions of the relationship of people, such measurements now being regarded as quite W important as language and other tests. The general deduction of several noted scientists from data available is that the British race shows a tendency to increase in stature, and there is apparently support for this theory in Sew Zealand. Since 1913 that very useful body of workers, the Division of Schools Hygiene, has been keeping records of height, weights and other details, o* the school children, and. comparing 1913 with 1926, the director (Dr. Ad* G. Paterson) says that there has been « definite improvement in height M* weight for Xew Zealand school children. Comparing the city children the figure* show that the 1925 boys and girls were superior in height to the 1913 lot by®* of an inch in height, and 0.7 of a ponw in weight. Similar observations have been other countries. In Marlborongn College, England, the boys between M and 15 years of age increased 0.56 of •■ inch in 25 years. A Danish doctor showed that the full-grown Dane in the last 50 years had increased by 3.w centimetres. In America the yoonP women in the colleges to-day are s* , to be an inch taller and four or fi ve pounds heavier than the young women of ten years back. There are various reasons why >e Zealand children should have developed. Dr. Paterson mentions six probable: feetors —improved methods of child-welfare development of physical schools, more hygienic schools, «£ proved sanitation at home and abroj* with the adoption of more suitable clotting, the decreasing birth-rate, and the increased ratio of children of »•*- Zealand-born parents.