Between the Netherlands and Bangladesh, 19-year-olds are not the same height at all. They are about 20 centimeters apart. In study published on November 7 in the journal The Lancet, researchers at Imperial College London sought an explanation for the differences in height and body mass index in children around the world.
20 centimeters apart
From 5 to 19 years old, children from 193 countries have been measured and weighed, then compared since 1985. On average, a young adult is 1.65m in Bangladesh, against 1.83m in the Netherlands. A striking example: 19 year old Guatemalan woman is the same height as a Dutch 11 year old. And this difference is explained by the way in which they are fed, underline the scientists after having taken data from 2,181 studies on all the populations concerned.
Between 1980 and today, the average sizes across countries have changed. Da very significantly in some places, such as in China where young women gained 6.1 centimeters, and men 8.1 centimeters. To explain it, researchers point to a rise in the country’s standard of living. There is of course the availability of food, but not only: access to health services also matters. Conversely, for countries with health conditions that have deteriorated over the past thirty years, people tend to be shorter than before.
The tallest people come from the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, Bosnia (for boys), Denmark and Iceland for girls. The smallest sizes are recorded in East Timor, Laos, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea for boys, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal and East Timor for girls.
Large disparities despite food programs
Sub-Saharan Africa particularly illustrates this observation. But the questions of malnutrition explaining stunting and weight problems also concern South Asia and parts of Central America. Currently, one in three children in the world continues to be malnourishedwhether it is undernourishment or overweight. And one in two children has deficiencies.
However, through food and health programs developed on a global scale, the proportion of children under 5 suffering from stunting has fallen by a third since 2000. At least that is what explains Victor Aguayo, head of the nutrition program at Unicef, in an interview with Le Monde.
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