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Toddlers, teenagers, and terminal heights: the importance of puberty for male adult stature, Flanders, 1800–76

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  • Ewout Depauw
  • Deborah Oxley

Abstract

Does adult stature capture conditions at birth or at some other stage in the growth cycle? Anthropometrics is lauded as a method for capturing net nutritional status over all the growing years. However, it is frequently assumed that conditions at birth were most influential. Was this true for historical populations? This article examines the heights of Flemish men born between 1800 and 1876 to tease apart which moments of growth were most sensitive to disruption and reflected in final heights. It exploits two proximate crises in 1846–9 and 1853–6 as shocks that permit age effects to be revealed. These are affirmed through a study of food prices and death rates. Both approaches suggest a shift of the critical moment away from the first few years of life and towards the adolescent growth spurt as the most influential on terminal stature. Furthermore, just as height is accumulated over the growing years, conditions influencing growth need to be understood cumulatively. Economic conditions at the time of birth were not explanatory, but their collective effects from ages 11 to 18 years were strongly influential. At these ages, both health and nutrition mattered, to varying degrees. Teenagers, rather than toddlers, should be our guides to the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Ewout Depauw & Deborah Oxley, 2019. "Toddlers, teenagers, and terminal heights: the importance of puberty for male adult stature, Flanders, 1800–76," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(3), pages 925-952, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:72:y:2019:i:3:p:925-952
    DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12745
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    Cited by:

    1. Adolfo Meisel-Roca & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo & Daniel Lasso-Jaramillo, 2023. "Gender height dimorphism: An approximation of the living Standards in Colombia, 1920-1990," Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (IHE-EHR), Journal of the Spanish Economic History Association, Asociación Española de Historia Económica, vol. 19(02), pages 124-139.
    2. Schneider, Eric & Ogasawara, Kota & Cole, Tim J., 2020. "The Effect of the Second World War on the Growth Pattern of Height in Japanese Children: Catch-up Growth, Critical Windows and," CEPR Discussion Papers 14808, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Björn Quanjer, 2024. "Height and the disease environment of children: The association between mortality and height in the Netherlands 1850–1940," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(2), pages 391-415, May.
    4. Schneider, Eric B., 2023. "The determinants of child stunting and shifts in the growth pattern of children: a long-run, global review," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120392, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Thompson, Kristina & Koolman, Xander & Portrait, France, 2021. "Height and marital outcomes in the Netherlands, birth years 1841-1900," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    6. Thompson, Kristina & Quanjer, Björn & Murkens, Mayra, 2020. "Grow fast, die young? The causes and consequences of adult height and prolonged growth in nineteenth century Maastricht," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).

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