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A century of trends in adult human height

Bentham, James ; Di Cesare, Mariachiara ; Stevens, Gretchen A. ; Zhou, Bin ; Bixby, Honor ; Cowan, Melanie J. ; Fortunato, Léa ; Bennett, James E. ; Danaei, Goodarz and Hajifathalian, Kaveh , et al. (2016) In eLife 5(2016JULY).
Abstract

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3- 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average... (More)

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3- 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8- 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.

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type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
eLife
volume
5
issue
2016JULY
article number
e13410
publisher
eLife Sciences Publications
external identifiers
  • scopus:84979691929
  • scopus:85143997417
ISSN
2050-084X
DOI
10.7554/eLife.13410.001
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
0ba6e243-cc83-47fb-a262-cc89001ff7c4
date added to LUP
2017-02-01 13:36:14
date last changed
2025-04-07 08:02:18
@article{0ba6e243-cc83-47fb-a262-cc89001ff7c4,
  abstract     = {{<p>Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3- 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8- 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.</p>}},
  author       = {{Bentham, James and Di Cesare, Mariachiara and Stevens, Gretchen A. and Zhou, Bin and Bixby, Honor and Cowan, Melanie J. and Fortunato, Léa and Bennett, James E. and Danaei, Goodarz and Hajifathalian, Kaveh and Lu, Yuan and Riley, Leanne M. and Laxmaiah, Avula and Kontis, Vasilis and Paciorek, Christopher J. and Ezzati, Majid and Abdeen, Ziad A. and Hamid, Zargar Abdul and Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. and Acosta-Cazares, Benjamin and Adams, Robert J and Aekplakorn, Wichai and Aguilar-Salinas, Carlos A. and Agyemang, Charles and Ahmadvand, Alireza and Ahrens, Wolfgang and Al-Hazzaa, Hazzaa M and Al-Othman, Amani Rashed and Al-Raddadi, Rajaa Mohammad Salem and Ali, Mohamed Khalid and Alkerwi, Ala’a and Alvarez-Pedrerol, Mar and Aly, Eman and Amouyel, Philippe and Amuzu, Antoinette and Andersen, Lars Bo and Anderssen, Sigmund A. and Anjana, Ranjit Mohan and Aounallah-Skhiri, Hajer and Ariansen, Inger and Aris, Tahir and Arlappa, Nimmathota and Arveiler, Dominique and Assah, Felix K. and Avdicová, Mária and Azizi, Fereidoun and De Backer, Guy and Giwercman, Aleksander and Sonestedt, Emily and Stocks, Tanja}},
  issn         = {{2050-084X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  number       = {{2016JULY}},
  publisher    = {{eLife Sciences Publications}},
  series       = {{eLife}},
  title        = {{A century of trends in adult human height}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13410.001}},
  doi          = {{10.7554/eLife.13410.001}},
  volume       = {{5}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}