A historic record. Timothy Hatton, an economist at the University of Essex in Great Britain, admits himself surprised by the results of his large-scale study published Monday in the journal Oxford Economic Papers.
After compiling data on the height of 21-year-old men born between 1870 and 1980 in fifteen European countries, the researcher concluded that Europeans grew by 11 centimeters over 110 years. “Unprecedented growth”, according to the economist who attributes it above all to the health advances of recent decades. “The progress made in the fight against diseases, which is reflected in the drop in infant mortality, are the most determining factor in this increase in size, ”he explains.
If the global average gives an increase of 1 centimeter per decade, differences emerge between countries. Thus Northern Europe (Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) and Central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland), did not evolve at the same pace as the Southern Europe (France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Spain). The populations of northern and central Europe in fact grew particularly quickly between 1914 and 1945 before settling down a bit. Southern Europe took over in a way after World War II by experiencing its strongest growth.
In France, the study details that the inhabitants took 0.57 cm per decade between 1871 and 1911, then 1.10 cm until 1951 and finally 1.16 cm the following decades. Today, a young adult born in the late 1970s measures on average 1m76 or 1m77 while in 1870, the average height of young men reached 1m66.
