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How We Get Tall

theatlantic.com

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Re: How We Get Tall

#21

Post by StavrosK »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #13
rdl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Females are shorter than males. Adults are taller than teenagers. It's saying it took until the 1930+s for European men to reach levels of height we'd consider normal for teenaged girls today.

Yeah, this reminds me of a somewhat chilling moment when a chinese teenager asked me what I was reading about (regression to the mean). By way of introducing the concept, I asked "if someone is very tall, are their parents probably taller or shorter than they are?" "Shorter". So far so good. "If someone is very short, are their parents taller or shorter?" "Shorter". Apparently, to the current generation, no matter ho…

Maybe you should have also been reading about faulty generalization :P

Re: How We Get Tall

#22

Post by thaumasiotes »

yen223 wrote: post #16
thaumasiotes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this reminds me of a somewhat chilling moment when a chinese teenager asked me what I was reading about (regression to the mean). By way of introducing the concept, I asked "if someone is very tall, are their parents probably taller or shorter than they are?" "Shorter". So far so good. "If someone is very short, are their parents taller or shorter?" "Shorter". Apparently, to the current generation, no matter ho…

As people get older, their height gets shorter. It's not entirely wrong to believe that your parents will be shorter than you, no matter what your height is.

This process has limits. Older chinese aren't short because they're old, they're short because of nutritional stress.

Also, shrinking isn't a linear process. You spend most of your life only shrinking a small amount; most of it happens toward the very end:

> For both sexes, height loss began at about age 30 years and accelerated with increasing age. Cumulative height loss from age 30 to 70 years averaged about 3 cm for men and 5 cm for women; by age 80 years, it increased to 5 cm for men and 8 cm for women.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10547143

Re: How We Get Tall

#23

Post by Dewie »

> John Komlos, an economic historian who has studied height extensively, thinks we Americans lost our height advantage because of poorer overall healthcare and nutrition compared to Europe. Our social shortcomings, he believes, are literally making us come up short.

"lost our height advantage". These kinds of articles always seem to boil down to "why has America fallen from grace/stopped being #1?".

Re: How We Get Tall

#24

Post by thaumasiotes »

StavrosK wrote: post #21
thaumasiotes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this reminds me of a somewhat chilling moment when a chinese teenager asked me what I was reading about (regression to the mean). By way of introducing the concept, I asked "if someone is very tall, are their parents probably taller or shorter than they are?" "Shorter". So far so good. "If someone is very short, are their parents taller or shorter?" "Shorter". Apparently, to the current generation, no matter ho…

Maybe you should have also been reading about faulty generalization :P

Maybe so, but it's hard for me to turn it around and accuse them of being wrong; older chinese really are short. Compare the traditional anime depiction of the elderly: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MiniatureSeniorCi...

Re: How We Get Tall

#26

Post by frozenport »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

We still haven't reached the average height we were 40000 years ago[1]. Agriculture allowed us to feed many more people, but it came at a terrible price on human health. And the fact that the article says we are taller now than we have ever been in history, which is patently not true, casts a serious level of doubt on the article. 1. http://australianmuseum.net.au/How-have-we-changed-since-our...

>>came at a terrible price on human health

http://www.thelazycaveman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cav...

Re: How We Get Tall

#27

Post by has2k1 »

tom_jones wrote: post #15

I thought the Maasai people of East Africa were the tallest. Their height is all the more impressive considering their rough lifestyles and nutrition.

The Maasai are not known for their height, it's the Dinka (remember Manute Bol?) of South Sudan.

Re: How We Get Tall

#28

Post by crusso »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

We still haven't reached the average height we were 40000 years ago[1]. Agriculture allowed us to feed many more people, but it came at a terrible price on human health. And the fact that the article says we are taller now than we have ever been in history, which is patently not true, casts a serious level of doubt on the article. 1. http://australianmuseum.net.au/How-have-we-changed-since-our...

but it came at a terrible price on human health

That statement doesn't make sense.

It was because agriculture contributed so mightily to human health and well-being that we survived and flourished to cover the surface of the earth and travel into space.

Even if some of our ancestors were bigger, it doesn't mean that they were "more healthy".

Re: How We Get Tall

#29

Post by crusso »

Dewie wrote: post #23

> John Komlos, an economic historian who has studied height extensively, thinks we Americans lost our height advantage because of poorer overall healthcare and nutrition compared to Europe. Our social shortcomings, he believes, are literally making us come up short. "lost our height advantage". These kinds of articles always seem to boil down to "why has America fallen from grace/stopped being #1?".

With an added hammer pounding for European-style healthcare, which is mentioned three or four times while considering American immigration influx from "shorter" populations is a throwaway word at the end of the article.

Re: How We Get Tall

#30

Post by BugBrother »

crusso wrote: post #29
Dewie wrote: post #23

> John Komlos, an economic historian who has studied height extensively, thinks we Americans lost our height advantage because of poorer overall healthcare and nutrition compared to Europe. Our social shortcomings, he believes, are literally making us come up short. "lost our height advantage". These kinds of articles always seem to boil down to "why has America fallen from grace/stopped being #1?".

With an added hammer pounding for European-style healthcare, which is mentioned three or four times while considering American immigration influx from "shorter" populations is a throwaway word at the end of the article.

Is there no "more fast food in USA" hypothesis?

(I.e. a lack of fiber, vitamins or something?)

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