Height, Health and History

Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4889691
AutoresRichard H Steckel, Roderick Floud, Kenneth W Wachter (0000-0003-2802-2212), Kenneth Wachter, Annabel Gregory
Ano1991
Volume17
Fascículo4
Páginas737
Data de publicação1991-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1973608
OpenAlexW3121289246
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas50

In historical accounts of the circumstances of ordinary people's lives, nutrition has been the great unknown. Nearly impossible to measure or assess directly, it has nonetheless been held responsible for the declining mortality rates of the nineteenth century as well as being a major factor in the gap in living standards, morbidity and mortality between rich and poor. The measurement of height is a means of the direct assessment of nutritional status. This important and innovative study uses a wealth of military and philanthropic data to establish the changing heights of Britons during the period of industrialization, and thus establishes an important dimension to the long-standing controversy about living standards during the Industrial Revolution. Sophisticated quantitative analysis enables the authors to present some striking conclusions about the actual physical status of the British people during a period of profound social and economic upheaval, and Height, Health and History will provide an invigorating statistical edge to many debates about the history of the human body itself

Biology · Environmental health · Geography · Kingdom · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Demography · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Medicine