( It is just not President George W. Bush...)Americans Grow Shorter, Blame It on Weak Healthcare,Health

It is just not President George W. Bush who has suffered a disastrous decline in stature . It now turns out that literally too Americans have been growing shorter these days, falling behind the Europeans.

The title of the study published by Benjamin Lauderdale at Princeton University and John Komlos at the University of Munich in the Social Science Quarterly tells it all: Underperformance in Affluence: The Remarkable Relative Decline in U.S. Heights in the Second Half of the 20th Century.

Americans had always been giants, with the tallest men in the world going back as far as the data exists (at least to the mid-19th century).

During the First World War, American GIs still towered over the Europeans they liberated. But for three decades beginning at the end of World War Two, Americans' average height stagnated while Europeans continued the growth-spurt that one would expect to see during a period of relative peace and rising incomes.

Now, with an average height of 5'10", American men are now significantly shorter than men from countries like Denmark (6 footers) or the Netherlands (6' 1"). In fact, Americans -- men and women -- are now shorter, on average, than the citizens of every single country in Western and Northern Europe.

How can one explain that reversal? The study's authors, believe it's a result of "differences in the socioeconomic institutions of Europe and the United States".

We conjecture that the U.S. health-care system, as well as the relatively weak welfare safety net, might be why human growth in the United States has not performed as well in relative terms.

Scientists have a good understanding of the factors that determine height. Genetic variations are key to individuals' heights, but aren't a significant factor in the average height of a population. That has to do with health and nutrition, especially during childhood, from prenatal health through adolescence. The aut
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