MAN BECOMING TALLER

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXX, Issue 3627, 3 July 1939, Page 7

MAN BECOMING TALLER

World-Wide Rise in Average Height. Measurements of conscripts in several European countries during the past half-century show that the average height is increasing at a rate of about one inch in twenty-five years. Similar increases have been observed in Japan, India and North America, and it is possible that the change is world-wide. An obvious explanation, so far as the more civilised races are concerned, would be provided by the notable advances in nutrition and hygiene during the past fifty years, but a recent investigation, reported in “Nature” by Miss Ruth Jacob, of Newnham College, suggests that advances in diet and hygiene do not provide the whole explanation. Miss Jacob has examined the heights and weights of girls at St. Paul’s Girls’ School for the past thirty years. During that period, she says, the social class from which the girls come has remained unchanged. Yet the records show a significant advance in both height and weight. Girls of eleven to-day are two inches taller and eleven pounds heavier than girls of the same age ten years ago. Their height is thus increasing at the rate of an inch in ten years, and their weight at the rate of 5& lbs. in the same period. Miss Jacob points out that the height of girls of sixteen is increasing at the rate of 0.6 inches, and their weight at the rate of 3.8 lbs., in ten years.