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KeenObserver

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Height: 5'6

Location: Manhattan, United States

Joined: Apr 23, 2024

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Re: Sharp Decline In American Average Height - Washington Post

Quote:

Originally posted by Suarez223

I read somewhere that the average height in the colonial days in the U.S. was much shorter than it is today. You can see this with lower doorways in homes from that era. I also remember reading how the a lot of the armor (think knights) during medieval times were for men in the 5'11 range. What I take from that is that height lowers and rises in cycles.

Even though the study makes note that they surveyed native-born Americans, that can mean anything. It could be of ethnic groups that are shorter on average and their parents immigrated here a generation ago. Those second generation people would be considered "native-born".

There is a lot of truth to this actually and you did read this somewhere. This snippet is from an article from the University Of Oxford. I will link it below. Thought it's about the british, it applies to the states as the study follows human height from the early modern period into the colonial era.

"The early years of the 1600s were ‘unusually healthy’, and the paper notes that the introduction of poor laws may have contributed to better health for poorer sections of society. Heights then fell after 1650, falling to around 169 cm in the late 1600s, a decline that continued until the early 1800s, says the study. It notes that previous research suggests mortality rates had declined with life expectancy for those born between 1650-1750 being 35 years as compared with 40 years in the late 1500s. The nature of work after 1650 had changed with manual labour putting more of a toll on the body. The authors note that during the Industrial Revolution, the demands on workers were much greater than in medieval times. The increasing number of working days coupled with poorer working conditions could be why average height went down even though wages grew after 1650. The decline in heights could also be associated with increasing inequalities in society, suggests the paper."

The study and article can be found here.

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Topic: Sharp Decline In American Average Height - Washington Post

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