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[Rob <becida AT comcast.net>]

This was an interesting article on the first 
read, as I was thinking about it I had to go back and take a look again.
This article (roughly) equates average national 
height with health care, nutrition, stuff like that.
They use the date of 1970 as when the height 
'shifted' to somewhere else, I wonder how that 
date correlates with the widespread use of processed food in the USA?

It's worth the read on a late autumn night....

Rob
becida AT comcast.net


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20071129-9999-lz1c29height.html

>>Height has long been considered a pretty good 
measure of society's health and prosperity. A 
nation of tall people, the thinking goes, 
reflects a high standard of living. Food is 
abundant. Health care is broadly available, particularly for children.
Americans long enjoyed this kind of elevated 
status. For centuries, we were the tallest people 
in the world, on average. At the time of the 
Revolutionary War, the typical American colonist 
was 2 inches taller than the Englishman he was 
fighting. By 1850, the difference was 3 inches. 
The gap grew through much of the early 20th century.

The Dutch are now the tallest people in the 
world, according to recent studies. Americans 
have shrunk, relatively speaking. American men 
now rank ninth in the world in average height; 
females rank 15th. The average young Dutch male 
is slightly above 6 feet tall; the average 
American male is 5-foot-10. (Women tend to 
average about 5 inches shorter than men.)
American men are now generally shorter than 
Danes, Swedes, Czechs, Norwegians, Germans, 
Belgians and Canadians. They remain slightly 
taller than the English (by three-quarters of an 
inch) and the French (by eight-tenths of an inch).

It's hard to argue the point. Many Americans 
appear to survive substantially on fast food, 
which is notoriously rich in sugar and fat but 
deficient in overall nutrition. In 1970 – around 
the time the Netherlands actually surpassed the 
United States in average height – Americans spent 
about $6 billion annually on fast food. In 2004, the total was $148.6 billion.<<