Americans shrinking as junk food takes its toll

[kskiska]

Poverty and poor diet mean the average US man is getting smaller, while Europeans keep growing taller

Researchers have made a startling discovery: Americans are shrinking. A nation once famed for its strapping, well-nourished youth is gradually diminishing in physical stature.

By contrast, the heights of men and women from Europe are increasing inexorably. The average Dutchman, whose country produces the Continent's loftiest men, is now more than six feet tall - almost two inches above his American counterpart. And he is still growing. Across the Netherlands hotel owners are lengthening beds and raising door mantles to stop the nation's tall youth suffering from irreparable anatomical damage.

According to a New Yorker essay on the subject last week, Dutch ambulances are even having to keep their back doors open on many occasions to allow for the prodigious dimensions of their patients' legs.

New research has shown some unexpected disparities between statures of Americans and Europeans, indicating that recent social changes and diet are major influences on adult height.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html

[democracyindanger]

1. Yes!

Keep eating the Ho-hos and moonpies, people. Eventually I won't have such a problem at concerts and sporting events.

[minkyboodle]

15. LOL

funny post!!!

[Castilleja]

52. LOL!

I am right there with ya! --->Short :thumbsup:

[PartyPooper]

2. They're even making larger coffins, too!

I'm just an average American male just under six feet. But, I don't plan on being buried...I want to be cremated.

:evilgrin:

[rumguy]

3. absolutely fascinating

[kalian]

4. Peculiar....

how come blacks in the US, usually coming from rather poor families,
end up being the tallest? :shurg:

[murielm99]

5. Maybe they can't afford all that junk food?

[Logansquare]

9. The article in the New Yorker primarily compares Europeans

with Americans of European decent. I've read elsewhere that African Americans are on the average taller than Americans of other ethnicities, and heavier (not necessarily fat) as well. Just my anecdotal observation from seeing west African immigrants is that African Americans (most of whom are descended from western and central African peoples) are much taller than them, as well. Perhaps the biggest people were the only ones who could survive the horrors of slavery--or maybe they were selected because they were big and strong?

To get back to the New Yorker article, I was in the Netherlands a couple of years ago, and walking into a bar produced a strange deja vu--once again I was a little child, with my eyes not reaching armpit level. I'm glad they are friendly laid-back people, because I sure as hell wouldn't want those giants mad at me.

[Donkeyboy75]

16. From an evolutionary perspective, Equatorial peoples tend to be taller

because they needed to dissipate heat more quickly. Higher surface area to volume ratio. The contrast to this is peoples of the Arctic region (namely Inuit). Quite stout, and short...to keep in this same heat.

Exceptions abound for this, but it's a pretty interesting observation.

I don't think I buy this study, though. The profile of the average American is changing, and this phenomenon might just be due to the fact that individuals of a smaller size have been immigrating to the U.S. Something to chew on...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

31. I thought they were taller because there is more...

...centrifugal force being generated at the equator.

:silly:

[Lorien]

32. Here is something I've always wondered about

The Inuit and other Arctic natives are generally small and stout, yet white Scandinavians are generally quite tall (not only their location, but their diets are also very similar). I dated a 6'4" Swede once, and my supermodel friend (1/2 Norse, 1/2 Swede) is 6', while her brother is 6' 6"! Any theories? :shrug:

[smirkymonkey]

46. Lots of Dairy and Fish?

Probably a lot of calcium & protein in the diet, but very little fat makes them taller. Just a theory, though!

[Donkeyboy75]

48. I think that's because Scandanavians aren't Arctic "natives"

In other words, they populated these countries relatively recently (last 10-15,000 years) compared to other Arctic natives. What I've never heard explained, however, is why they are taller than their other European counterparts...unless they come from German stock. Some of those guys are giants as well.

[FlaGranny]

24. Genetics?

There are some very tall African people, but who knows if African Americans are taller or shorter than their African cousins.

[havocmom]

6. how often do you see young children drinking sugary sodas instead

of milk or juice? It is really astounding to watch what people give very young children to eat and drink. Yes, many are short of time, but there is just no excuse for the swill young kids are handed to consume. Just as easy to pour milk, water or juice as it is to pour kool aid/soda pop or 'fruit flavored', fructose-laden, artificial-imitation-juice substitute.

Bad enough they miss nutrition of real juice or milk, but the soda actually leeches calcium out of them.

[burrowowl]

11. In France

children usually eat cheese and fruits and drink water of non-alcholic cider.
Drinking fruit juices gives an overload of fructose. An orange a day is good, several oranges in orange juice overloads the system with fructose.

[cliss]

7. Americans may be getting shorter, but

they've gotten fatter. I was at the grocery store today, and looked around at the shoppers. Not a single one could be characterized as slim, or even medium build.

Some were even obese. Sadly, this is the worst killer of them all.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

33. I travel Europe and the Caribbean. Coming home is shocking.

Americans are statistically and observably huge.

Automobile culture and corporate corn syrup-based diet does this.

[NYC]

40. High fructose corn syrup is a serious problem.

Difficult to avoid, but everyone should make the effort. It is metabolized in a different way. Sugar is better.

[daleo]

8. I wonder how Canadians 'stack up', then

A consequence of this theory should be that Canadians would be taller than Americans (having public health care and more generous social programs in general). I don't know where one might find data on this though.

"This surprising reappraisal of American and European physiques is the work of researcher John Komlos of Munich University. 'Much of the difference is due to the great social inequality that now exists in the United States,' Komlos told The Observer last week. 'In Europe, there is - in most countries - good health service provision for most members of society and plenty of protein in most people's diets. As a result, children do not suffer illnesses that would blight their growth or suffer problems of malnutrition. For that reason, we have continued to grow and grow.'"

[Mari333]

10. My 3 sons are 6 feet 6 , 6 feet 4, and 6 feet 3

My stepson is 5 feet 9. I didnt feed him til he came to live with me at 18.
However my sons, had a dad, who was 6 feet 7.
I would like to think some of this has to do with genetics, and possibly the stats in the USA might be partly due to other factors also. Maybe GM foods? maybe pesticides and herbicides? Pollution? Stress?
could be all sorts of things.

12. Shorter?

Americans getting shorter?
Ah, to see our nation fall!
Still, it's better to love, and lose, a short one
Than to never have loved a tall!

Schwannzeichen

[kskiska]

41. The Romans were very small people

While visiting York, England, and walking the Roman walls, it's obvious from their lookout points, etc., that they were very small.

[gemini62167]

13. Watch what people buy in the supermarkets. . .

I'm a single gay man of Italian American background. I'm not a tall fellow, but I'm the odd man out in my family. However, I eat very healthy, cook everything and never buy anything processed. I do this because this is all I know. My family couldn't afford carboard boxes and plastic containers LOL.

Any who... I always laugh at the village sheeples. I can leave a supermarket with a shopping cart filled with food for just under a hundred bucks. While someone ahead of me shells out two hundred or more. It's all soda, microwave crap and stuff I wouldn't feed my cats.

Silly thing is, cooking is no big deal and takes less time than preparing some of this "instant" crap.

[Donkeyboy75]

18. I'm with you, Gemini

(except I'm straight...and German/Polish). :)

It's a shame that most don't know how to cook, as they just have a hard time eating a healthy diet.

[susanna]

36. You and I are on the same page...

My soon-to-be husband shopped like that until I met him. I made him a challenge: we both take the same amount of money into the grocery, he buys as much of his junk as he can and I buy as much food (the good stuff, as in real produce, meats, etc.) as I can. We'll see who comes out ahead. The challenge was accepted.

He ended up with a couple bags, I had about six. I had the makings for an entire week's worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. He had three days worth, if that.

Now he's a fabulous cook and sniffs the produce before he buys it. I have created a monster, and my occasional suggestion re: takeout is met with horror. ;-)

[moondust]

14. Not as much obesity in Europe either.

Much less car culture translates into more exercise, lots of walking. On top of better eating.

[kskiska]

42. There are still cities in Europe where people live and work

There aren't many "downtowns" left in the U.S. Here we get into our cars and drive to malls, where everything is in close proximity. People who live in cities walk much more.

[Rex]

17. Maybe it is all the pollution we pump into the air & water.

I'm not sure, but doesn't the US lead the world in pollution?

[rooboy]

19. A similar study recently in Australia showed this with school kids...

the ones that ate bad diets were on average half an inch shorter than the kids with good diets. Was pretty clear that diet and exercise was the primary cause.

[cryofan]

20. CorpGovMedia spins this as all about "junk food", but it is really about..

....income equality and universal healthcare. Of course that information is buried in the article, and the caption blames junk food.

[NashVegas]

27. Income and Food

If you tried cooking from scratch for a while, you might be surprised just how affordable a good meal really is.

I've started keeping a 'menu' in a spreadsheet, of various meals and the cost breakdowns.

Say you want a hearty, delicious tomato soup. Using canned tomatoes, it comes out to about 79 cents per person, feeds six. One can of Wolfgang Puck's similar goes for almost $3, and feeds two. Time to prep - about 30 minutes. 50% saving.

How about some artichoke ravioli in lemon sauce? 75 cents per person. Prep time - with a food processor - 30-45 minutes. In a grocer's deli, you could buy enough for two for closer to $5.

Maybe you'd like some baked macaroni & cheese, but not the Velveeta variety. This will cost you a little more - $1.35 per person (if you use top-shelf cheeses). Prep time - w/out a food processor - 1 hour.

Chicken dijon was more expensive - about $3.20 per person, using Bell & Evans chicken, but with Purdue would probably be less, like cut it in half. Takes about 15 minutes total prep.

The problem is not necessarily income, per sé, the problem is time. Low income people, you would expect to have less time, if they are working more than one job. Low income people are also less likely to have the kitchen space for time-saving equipment and gadgets, food storage, etc. If you make under 20k a year, the cost of a good food processor might seem exhorbitant. People with long commutes, regardless of income, have less time.

[Nile]

21. Doubt if it is junk food.

Probably more like immigration of shorter populations.

[hadrons]

22. "Probably more like immigration of shorter populations." ....

I'm thinking this too ... I agree this country's diet is getting worse and the people (non-immigrant and immigrant included) are getting fatter, but immigrants from Mexico and South America on avg. (not all) are much shorter than the avg. American

[kodi]

26. my first thoughts too.

.

[mainer]

30. The New Yorker article eliminates the immigration factor

If you read the New Yorker article, they specifically address that issue, and the studies control for immigration. Caucasians in the US are compared to Caucasians in Europe.

Some fascinating tidbits: During WWI, the average American soldier was two inches taller than the average German soldier!

Americans aren't getting SHORTER, necessarily. They just aren't keeping up with the height increases that we're seeing in other populations around the world. Even the Japanese are gaining height at a far greater rate, and may perhaps equal Americans before long.

I was in Amsterdam a few weeks ago -- and I was startled by how short I felt, compared to the Dutch. And I'm a 5'6" woman, not all that short!

[ctex]

35. You've hit the nail on the head -- immigration is the reason

Over the past several decades the US has received many millions of immigrants from Mexico, Central America and East/South East Asia who on average are much shorter than native-born Americans.

This point was driven home to me when my family moved from Nebraska to Houston when my daughter was in junior high school. One glance at her class photos showed her going from well below average in height to above average among the girls. She went from about the 20th percentile to the 80th. Her classmates in Houston were about 60% Mexican-American versus none in Nebraska.

[amazona]

43. no immigration isn't the reason

If you read the whole article, they address this. The study specifically controlled for it.

Millions upon millions of starving people, who had less to eat than today's Mexicans, such as the starving Irish (fleeing the potato famine) and many other starving populations immigrated by the millions in the 1800s and 1900s. There were always huge waves of immigrants in the United States, yet it had the tallest population ON AVERAGE until very recently. We had a huge immigrant population in those years and were famous for being a nation of immigrants.

The immigrants are not responsible for dragging down the statistics or we would have never been "up there" in the stats to begin with as, let's face it, the nation was settled in huge numbers by immigrants.

By the way, there is also a huge wave of immigrants moving into Europe at this time but apparently the "average height" of Europeans continues to increase.

I got a chuckle about the Dutch being so tall...I thought smoking was supposed to stunt your growth! :-)

[Logansquare]

44. My impressions from being there are that most of the potheads

in the Netherlands are from elsewhere. The Dutch eat meat and cheese for breakfast, and you can buy beer in vending machines--oh, a happy people they are.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. We diagnose a lot of kids with ADD/ADHD

and dose them with Ritalin, which stunts growth.

[ithacan]

25. link to New Yorker article and interview with author on this topic

here's the article:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/

THE HEIGHT GAP
by BURKHARD BILGER
Why Europeans are getting taller and taller—and Americans aren’t.
Issue of 2004-04-05
Posted 2004-03-29


and here's an interview with the author:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?040405on_onlineonly01

The Short American
Posted 2004-03-29

In “The Height Gap,” in this week’s issue and here online (see Fact), Burkhard Bilger writes about new questions raised by the study of human height. Here, with The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson, Bilger discusses what height says about a society’s health—and why Americans may be falling behind.

<snip>

Diet and health care are the most likely reasons. It appears as though we have a lot of short Americans, in part, because many can’t afford to get treated when they’re sick, or because they eat too much junk food. Also, some scholars seem to think that the effects of many Americans’ poor health and their poor diets might be creeping up the social ladder: we all live together and share the same diseases; rich kids go out and eat the same fast food that poor kids seem to be eating, and so they have the same obesity problems and the same lack of height. That may explain why even rich Americans aren’t getting any taller; unequal social situations may bring the entire society down.

Doesn’t America have the best health-care system in the world?

For those who can afford it, maybe, but not for a good chunk of the population that doesn’t have health insurance. One scholar’s studies imply that America doesn’t have the best health-care system, in terms of prenatal care and postnatal care. That might be better in Northern Europe than it is in the United States, and it’s hugely important for height.

Do Americans, as a society, have a height gap?

We do, and it’s really worth looking at. In recent years, we’ve had a tendency to suggest, as a society, that the growing income gap between the rich and the poor doesn’t really affect everyone—that it’s a necessary evil, an outgrowth of our over-all prosperity. What height tells us is that maybe it’s not as easy as that, that inequality of income may be pulling us all down.

Literally pulling us down.

Right, I think so.
<more>

[m-jean03]

28. Funny, when I lived in France --

I knew people who practically lived off of Coke, Candy, cigarettes and steak.:shrug:

[Art_from_Ark]

38. They probably were not older people

Maybe you should look them up in a decade or two and see what kind of condition they're in then...

[m-jean03]

39. I imagine it won't be too hot

I just think it's funny when people say Europeans eat so well, because the ones I knew sure didn't. They were as fast-living as they come.

Actually, I knew a woman there who was 30 and had been smoking since she was 13. She looked about 50! Yikes.

[Logansquare]

45. Well, one of the things the NY article highlighted was disease

The evidence doesn't entirely point to diet, as much as lack of physical stressors (such as disease) at key growth points during the lifespan. The Dutch all receive excellent public-subsidized healthcare from the womb to the grave.

[smirkymonkey]

47. The French have always appeared to be

some of the smallest people in Europe, not just height, but they seem very scrawny as well.

[robbedvoter]

29. Dang furriners! Uppity agin? Some BFEE democracy is what they need! nt

[Gin]

34. How symbolic...Americans are shrinking in stature...otherwise known as

public opinion...thanks to * and company.

[dawn]

37. I doubt it has to do with the food...

If a healthy diet is what causes people to be taller, how would that explain the height of men and women from many Asian countries, for example? Japan has one of the healthiest diets in the world, and the longest life-span, but still they are short in comparison to other races.

Obviously, that's because of their genes. Many studies have shown, though, that the younger generation of Japanese are now getting taller (and much heavier), because they are consuming more beef and more fast food.

It probably has more to do with the genetic makeup of the people involved. Most Northern Europeans have the natural propensity for being tall. (Not that everyone is, but on a whole.)

That being said, people from many other countries do eat fresher food on a whole than we do.

[Lisa]

49. just one problem re: the "tiny suits of armour" argument

Studies of medieval skeletons suggest that people tended to be taller than the armour as it's currently displayed. A couple of reasons for this: first, many museums (including the Tower of London) have it arranged on stands where it's more compressed that it would be on an actual human being.

Second -- many of the suits that have survived from the Middle Ages and Renaissance are teenagers' gear (which was put into storage after it was outgrown) or sizes that most people couldn't re-use. The larger suits tended to get handed down, and eventually wore out. (Think of the spectacle in many department stores, when most of the pants on the discount rack have already been picked over, leaving the smallest sizes.)

But it's true that Europeans got significantly shorter during the Industrial Revolution (attributed to crowding and malnutrition in the urban slums).

[jbm]

50. There is something called a 'return to the norm'

and I'm winging this from something I had explained to me awhile back,but apparently there is some 'biological standard' that influences things such as height. Statistically,two parents who are above average in height are less likely to have a child taller then themselves because nature steps in and 'downsizes' the kid. Don't ask me for anymore details then that cause that's all I remember,but it was my understanding that it's a genuine reality of nature.

Just thought I'd toss that in here..:)

[Foswia]

51. regression to the mean. [nt]