Height: Very Poor Women Are Shrinking, as Are Their Chances at a Better Life

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Height: Very Poor Women Are Shrinking, as Are Their Chances at a Better Life
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 25, 2011

The average height of very poor women in some developing countries has shrunk in recent decades, according to a new study by Harvard researchers.

Height is a reliable indicator of childhood nutrition, disease and poverty. Average heights have declined among women in 14 African countries, the study found, and stagnated in 21 more in Africa and South America. That suggests, the authors said, that poor women born in the last two decades, especially in Africa, are worse off than their mothers or grandmothers born after World War II.

“It’s a sobering picture,” said S. V. Subramanian, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author. “It tells you the world is not getting to be a better place for women of lower socioeconomic status. For them, it’s getting worse.”

The study, published last week in the online journal PLoS One, analyzed data on 365,000 adult women in 54 poor and middle-income countries from the hundreds of huge Demographic and Health Surveys paid for largely by American foreign aid.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/health/26global.html?_r=1&ref=world

[Poll_Blind]

1. Honduran women are...tiny. I never correlated this with childhood nutrituion...

...because when I knew them there were already in college or out of college.

PB

[Demeter]

6. So are Russian Women

Recent emigrees, even the youngest, are stunted.

[Kolesar]

2. Poor soil or played-out soil means malnutrition

Indigenous people in the Andes are short, short-lived, and have low IQs. I learned that while reading a web posting by "my favorite gardening writer".

[Hannah Bell]

3. poor soil is the least of it. try lack of food or lack of a varied diet before going to

"poor soil".

[Kolesar]

10. Americans with poor soil had statistically more health problems than other Americans

That was true back when food was grown locally: that time was before World War 2.

[Hannah Bell]

12. *poor* people.

[Kolesar]

13. Conscripts from the prairies of Missouri were rejected at half the rate of the rest of Missouri

In World War Two, 400/1000 conscripts from the woodlands of Missouri were rejected due to missing teeth or other health problems as compared to 200/1000 conscripts being rejected from prairie Missouri. It was not because they were that much richer or poorer. It was because of the quality of the food produced by the soil.

Search on the first occurance of "malnutrition":
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010178.better.than.organic.pdf

[Hannah Bell]

14. that little factoid means precisely nothing without more information, &

since your link contains nothing about it, i won't comment further except to say that the ozarks (missouri woodland) *is* historically poorer than northern missouri & that the indians who lived in that region before colonization weren't malnourished.

if you want to give me a reference, we can discuss it further.

[Kolesar]

18. St. Louis is in the woodlands of Missouri ...

...in the wealthiest part of the state. There is nothing to support your thesis that the St. Louis area is the poorest part of the state and had vastly worse health problems.

You are way out on this one.

[bettyellen]

5. I remember a Mayan tour guide telling us his ancestors were not short

in the days wen they built the pyramids.....he blamed it on malnutrician after the Spaniards arrived.

[Hannah Bell]

4. it's telling to me that on the poorest continent, the poorest women are worse-off than their

parents.

says something about the transition to a neo-lib global regime & the removal of "socialist" social programs in africa & latin america.

[SharonAnn]

7. And how are the poorest men doing? Are they also stunted? Or is it different for them?

[Igel]

8. Dunno.

I gave it a quick look. I don't trust the results.

1. Those with just primary education are shorter than those with no education or with secondary or greater education. This is an oddity crying out for an explanation. I didn't see it. I suspect that the poor in urban settings have a greater likelihood

2. They pooled all their data. This brings with it a variety of problems.

a. I didn't see where they adjusted for sample size, although they note that (as you'd expect) different ethnicities have different heights. If they sampled more Mayans in later years than they did in earlier years, it would skew the data.

b. Within a country there are differences in ethnicities, esp. in Africa--although Guatemala would show some variation. More European = taller. If they expanded the range of US aid programs from areas with greater mestizo populations to more indigenous populations, that, too, would show up as a decrease.

c. I didn't see where they controlled for urban/rural sample size.

Now, perhaps they did. These are obvious confounds and a good writer that wants to convince the reader will not only present all the evidence for his case but will also parry obvious criticisms. (An excellent writer will do this without the reader noticing it, for the most part.)

Then again, SES stands for a lot more than just income.

[AngryAmish]

9. The Vietnamese are a wee people

[Hannah Bell]

11. the same could be said of the japanese pre 1950. now they are much taller.

[defendandprotect]

16. Sure beat the hell out of our US military in Vietnam, though -- !!!

:nuke:

[Dr_Scholl]

17. Not really.

n/t

[defendandprotect]

19. Really --- !!

[defendandprotect]

15. Patriarchy's war on women continues -- and it is suicidal for all humanity -- and the planet!!