Economist traces height trends

U.S. heights don't dominate anymore; economist thinks he knows why

Article tools





When John Komlos wants to take the measure of a nation's economic well-being, he doesn't check its gross domestic product or consumer price index. He ignores its average household income and unemployment figures.

Instead, Komlos takes a look at how tall its people have grown.

"Height is a very good overall indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment," he explained.

Komlos, a professor in the economics department at the University of Munich, Germany, has dedicated his professional life to the study of anthropometric history—his own coinage for the academic field that studies the links between a population's height and general well-being.

What Komlos has learned is that Americans, despite their nation's prosperity, abundance of food and cutting-edge medical technology, stopped getting taller in the 1950s and have now been passed by their European cousins.

"Americans were head and shoulders above Europeans in the 18th Century, and it stayed that way for two centuries," he said. "Now it's the other way around."

This, according to Komlos, suggests that Europeans eat better, have better access to health care and enjoy a more equitable distribution of national wealth. They will almost certainly live longer than their American counterparts.

"You can learn a lot by looking at people's height," said Komlos, who stands 5 feet 7 inches tall. He attributes his modest stature to a hungry early childhood.

Komlos was born in Budapest in the closing months of World War II. He and his family survived Nazi occupation only to be persecuted by Hungarian communists. After the failed revolt of 1956, the family fled to America and settled in Chicago.

Komlos' family lived in Logan Square, where his father ran a small shop selling leather watchbands. The family also took in boarders, so they had enough to eat, but not much else.

Komlos graduated from Lane Technical High School and went on to earn doctorates in history and economics at the University of Chicago. When he was a graduate student, his eureka moment came in 1982 during a lecture by Robert Fogel, the U. of C. economist who had published a controversial study on the slave economy of the American South and later won a Nobel prize. Fogel's work led to further research by another Chicago doctoral student, Richard Steckel (now at Ohio State University), who established that African-American slaves stood significantly taller than their African ancestors and most Europeans but were still shorter than their North American owners.

"The idea of measuring the living standard of a population using height as a proxy variable attracted me," Komlos recalled.



For the next quarter century, Komlos scoured obscure archives and public records for data about the height of soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army, the dietary habits of the working-class poor in 19th Century London, and the comparative growth rates of children in East and West Germany.



Fascinating history

One of Komlos' first revelations was that soldiers in George Washington's Continental Army were, on average, a full 2 inches taller than the British soldiers whom they defeated.

But it was not until 2004, when he and colleague Marieluise Baur published a paper documenting America's relative decline in stature, that his anthropometric research grabbed widespread notice.

"From the Tallest to (One of) the Fattest: The Enigmatic Fate of the American Population in the 20th Century," was the title of their paper, and in it they showed that American men and women simply stopped growing in the 1950s, while the developed nations of Europe went on a spectacular growth spurt.

The Dutch led the way. At the end of World War II, the average Dutch male stood no taller than 5 foot 7, about 3 inches shorter than the average American male. Today the average height for Dutch males is a shade less than 6 foot 1, making them the tallest people in the world. Scandinavian males run a close second.

Medical experts have established that our adult height is largely determined by three growth spurts. The first occurs in infancy, the second between age 6 and the onset of puberty, and the third during adolescence. Genetics determines an individual's height—whether a person is shorter or taller than the national norm—but external factors determine a population's height.

More articles

Related topic galleries: Private Health Care, Logan Square, Ohio State University, Health Treatments, Armed Forces, Population, Medical Services

Get Chicago Tribune home delivery and save big.

Would you recommend this?

Rate it:
No Somewhat Neutral Yes Highly

Looking for advice?

Printable coupons

chicago deals

Pets

Pets

Share your favorite image of Fido or Fluffy.

Upload your own photo