Height, Weight, and Body Mass of the British Population Since 1820

The average height of a population has become a familiar measure of that population's nutritional status. This paper extends the use of anthropometric data in the study of history by exploring published evidence on the weight, as well as the height, of British populations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and by computing the Body Mass Index of those populations. The results confirm a fall in mean height in the middle of the nineteenth century and show that this was paralleled by a fall in weight. Subsequent increases in weight and BMI lagged behind those in height. The data show no evidence of inequalities in nutritional status within families. Earlier findings of a period of declining height in the mid-nineteenth century have been attacked because of an apparent inconsistency with real wage data. The evidence for decline is now confirmed by further anthropometric and mortality data, while recent research into real wages has confirmed that a check to growth occurred and has thus removed the apparent inconsistency.

Measuring the transformation of the european economies: income, health and welfare

Die Messung des nationalen Einkommens trägt in großem Maße bei zum Verständnis von Einkommen und sozialer Chance in Europa in den letzten 100 Jahren. Aber die Analyse des Nationaleinkommens bringt keine volle Beschreibung der Veränderungen im Bereich der Wohlfahrt und insbesondere der Ursachen und Effekte der Langzeitveränderungen im Bereich der Gesundheit der europäischen Bevölkerung. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Methoden, die benutzt werden, die Schätzungen des Nationaleinkommens vergleichbar zu machen, und die zeigen, daß sie, wenn sie nicht ausgetauscht werden, ergänzt werden können durch Meßinstrumente für das Wachstum der Menschen in der Körpergröße als ein Indikator der Veränderungen der Ernährungsgewohnheiten der nationalen Bevölkerung, der Menschen einer besonderen Region und von sozialen Klassen. (KWübers.)'The measurement of national income has added greatly to our understanding of economic and social change in Europe over the past hundred years. But national income analysis does not take full account of changes in welfare and particularly of the causes and effects of long term changes in the health of the European populations. The paper surveys methods which have been used to adjust national income estimates and shows that they can be supplemented, if not replaced, by measures of growth in human physical height as an indicator of changes in the nutritional status of national populations, of people in particular areas and of social classes.' (author's abstract

The Physical State of the British Working Class, 1870-1914: Evidence from Army Recruits

It is easier to discover why people died in the past than how healthy they were during their lives. However, in both Europe and North America, much evidence survives about the health of young males from the medical examination of recruits to the armed forces. The paper discusses the possibility of generalizing from one such source, that of British volunteer recruits, to the health of the male working class. It concludes that the source is not seriously biassed and that, after some statistical correction, the data suggest a gradual improvement in the nutritional status, measured by average height, of the British working class.This finding contradicts much contemporary opinion that the British were physically deteriorating in the late nineteenth century.

Changes in American and British Stature Since the Mid-Eighteenth Century: A Prelimanary Report on the Usefulness of Data on Height...

This paper is a progress report on the usefulness of data on physical height for the analysis of long-ten changes in the level of nutrition and health on economic, social, and demographic behavior. It is based on a set of samples covering the U.S. and several other nations over the years from 1750 to the present. The preliminary results indicate that native-born. American Revolution, but there were long periods of declining nutrition and height during the 19th century. Similar cycling has been established for England. A variety of factors, including crop mix, urbanization, occupation, intensity of labor, and immigration affected the level of height and nutrition, although the relative importance of these factors has changed over time. There is evidence that nutrition affected labor productivity. In one of the samples individuals who were one standard deviation above the mean height (holding weight per inch of height constant) were about 8% more productive than individuals one standard deviation below the mean height. Another finding is that death did not choose people at random. Analysis of data for Trinidad indicates that the annual death rate for the shortest quintile of males was more than twice as great as for the tallest quintile of males.

Health, Height and Welfare: Britain 1700-1980

This paper reviews the evidence regarding the main trends in the height of the British population since the early eighteenth century. We argue that the average heights of successive birth cohorts of British males increased slowly between the middle of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Average heights fell during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, before rising from the 1850s onwards. This analysis is supported by an examination of the main trends in children's heights during the twentieth century. Our findings are compared with the results of an alternative method of measuring human welfare - a modified version of the United Nations' Human Development Index. The main trends in human development reinforce the conclusions drawn from our own interpretation of the anthropometric evidence.

Diet, Health and Work Intensity in England and Wales, 1700-1914

In their different ways, both Thomas Malthus and Thomas McKeown raised fundamental questions about the relationship between food supply and the decline of mortality. Malthus argued that food supply was the most important constraint on population growth and McKeown claimed that an improvement in the population’s capacity to feed itself was the most important single cause of mortality change. This paper explores the implications of these arguments for our understanding of the causes of mortality decline in Britain between 1700 and 1914. It presents new estimates showing changes in the calorific value and composition of British diets in 1700, 1750, 1800 and 1850 and compares these with the official estimates published by the Royal Society in 1917. It then considers the implications of these data in the light of new arguments about the relationship between diet, work intensity and economic growth. However the paper is not solely concerned with the analysis of food-related issues. It also considers the ways in which sanitary reform may have contributed to the decline of mortality at the end of the nineteenth century and it pays particular attention to the impact of cohort-specific factors on the pattern of mortality decline from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.