INTRODUCTION

The discussion in earlier chapters has demonstrated the existence of consistent height differentials between adults in different occupational groups in Britain in the nineteenth century, and of some dramatic differences between the mean heights of adolescents among the poorest and richest classes. This pattern has been related in general terms to living standards in this period, but we need to consider whether it is possible to be more specific about what these height differentials measure and about the conditions which produced them. What type of explanation could account for a difference of eight inches (20 cm) between the heights of 14-year-old boys sent to the Marine Society and cadets at Sandhurst?

Such contrasts are today found only among peoples in the third world, where many researchers have investigated the relation between health and growth. In this chapter we will therefore consider to what extent these studies, together with some from early twentieth-century Britain, can help us to interpret height differences in the last century. We will also consider how modern evidence can help us to explore the relationship between nutritional status in childhood and adolescence, on the one hand, and health and productivity in adult life on the other.

PATTERNS OF GROWTH IN CHILDHOOD

The normal pattern of growth in childhood and adolescence was described in chapter 1. Here we are concerned principally with environmental factors which disturb that pattern or cause groups of children to adopt one growth path rather than another.