The growth pattern of British children, 1850-1975†
The growth pattern of British children, 1850-1975†
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DOI：
10.1111/ehr.13002
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发表时间：
2020-07-27
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Schneider, Eric B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gao, Pei;Schneider, Eric B.
本文是第一个使用个人层面的，纵向措施的儿童成长，以文件的变化，在英国的增长模式之间的19世纪50年代和1970年代。基于从训练船Indefatigable的记录中收集的独特数据集，本研究使用控制可观察特征的回归分析了男孩入学时的平均身高及其纵向生长。我们的研究结果显示，男孩的平均身高随着时间的推移而长期增长，并且在两次世界大战之间的时期身高增长最快。此外，20世纪10年代以前出生的男孩在不同年龄段的纵向生长速度较低且相似，这表明青春期生长突增比现代人群中发生的要弱得多（低三个标准差）。然而，对于1910年代及以后出生的男孩，与青春期生长相关的较高生长速度出现在一个狭窄的年龄范围内（14至16岁）。因此，从1910年代开始，随着强劲的青春期生长突增的出现，生长模式似乎发生了重大变化。这一转变的时间意味着，儿童发病率的下降对增长模式的变化比1910年之前发生的营养改善更重要。
This article is the first to use individual-level, longitudinal measures of child growth to document changes in the growth pattern in Britain between the 1850s and the 1970s. Based on a unique dataset gathered from the records of the training shipIndefatigable, this study analyses the mean heights of boys at admission and their longitudinal growth using regressions that control for observable characteristics. Our findings show a secular increase in boys' mean height over time, and that height gain was most rapid during the interwar period. In addition, longitudinal growth velocity was low and similar at different ages for boys born before the 1910s, suggesting a substantially weaker pubertal growth spurt (three standard deviations lower) than that which occurs in modern populations. However, for boys born in the 1910s and later, higher growth velocities associated with pubertal growth appeared in a narrow range of ages (14 to 16 years). Thus, it appears that there was a substantial change in the growth pattern beginning in the 1910s with the emergence of a strong pubertal growth spurt. The timing of this shift implies that declines in child morbidity mattered more for the changing growth pattern than improvements in nutrition that occurred before 1910.