Children's growth in an adaptive framework
Explaining the growth patterns of American slaves and other historical populations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3581941 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eric B Schneider (0000-0001-7682-0126, Assistant Professor, Economic History Department London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-29 |
| Publication date | 2017-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ehr.12484 |
| OpenAlex | W2168253888 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 17 |
| References cited | 82 |
This article presents a new adaptive framework for understanding children's growth in the past. Drawing upon the recent work on adaptive responses in relation to growth, it presents prenatal and postnatal adaptive mechanisms that affect the growth patterns of children. The most novel adaptive response to the historical literature is the prenatal predictive adaptive response where the metabolism and growth trajectory of a child is programmed to match predicted conditions later in life. Having discussed the framework in detail, a reinterpretation of the growth pattern of American slaves is then suggested. It seems likely that a mismatch between relatively good conditions in utero and absolutely appalling conditions in infancy and early childhood led slave children to become extremely stunted by the age of three or four. However, after this age, slave children experienced catch-up growth because their immune systems had become more developed and because their diet improved tremendously and hookworm exposure was reduced. Thus, it seems that American slave children may have experienced substantial catch-up growth because they were prenatally programmed for a higher metabolism and growth trajectory. The article concludes by setting out some stylized facts about children's growth in the past and pointing toward areas of future research
Adaptive response · Affect (linguistics) · Biology · Developmental psychology · Economics · Fetus · In utero · Pregnancy · Sociology · Stylized fact · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Communication · Demography · Psychology
Net nutrition on the late 19 th and early 20 th century American Great Plains
Female Heights and Economic Development
Late 19th, early 20th century US, foreign-born body mass index values in the United States
Gender inequality in a transition economy
Childhood growth and socioeconomic outcomes in early adulthood evidence from the inter-war United States
Changing Institutions, Changing Net Nutrition
Weight as a Measure for the Net Nutritional Transition From Bound to Free Labor
The weight of nineteenth century Mexicans in the Western United States
Sample-Selection Biases and the Historical Growth Pattern of Children
Disease and child growth in industrialising Japan
The impact of social experiences of physical and structural violence on the growth of African enslaved children recovered from Lagos, Portugal (15th–17th centuries)
Health Shocks, Recovery, and the First Thousand Days
Weight and economic development
The Polish interbella puzzle
Persistence of natural disasters on children's health
The amelioration of British West Indian slavery
The growth pattern of British children, 1850-1975
The Fragile Wisdom
The Changing Body
Human Adaptation and Accommodation
Critical windows for nutritional interventions against stunting
Undernutrition as an underlying cause of child deaths associated with diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and measles
Maternal nutrition, fetal nutrition, and disease in later life
Assessment of differences in linear growth among populations in the WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study
International standards for newborn weight, length, and head circumference by gestational age and sex
Disease and Development
Worldwide Timing of Growth Faltering
The fetal and infant origins of adult disease.
Evolution, development and timing of puberty
Diets versus Diseases in the Anthropometrics of Slave Children
Two decade trends in birth weight and early childhood growth in Papua New Guinea
Low birth weight of contemporary African Americans
Life history trade‐offs in human growth
Genetic regulation of growth from birth to 18 years of age
The antibiotic transformation of Danish obstetrics. The hidden links between the decline in perinatal mortality and maternal mortality in the mid-twentieth century
The hidden penalties of gender inequality
The treatment received by American slaves
Growth depression and recovery
Birth weights in three Norwegian cities, 1860–1984. Secular trends and influencing factors
Evidence for a secular trend in heights and weights of adults in Papua New Guinea
Height, weight and menarcheal age of Oslo schoolchildren during the last 60 years
Physical stature and biological living standards of girls and young women in the Netherlands, born between 1815 and 1865
From Nutrition to Aspirations and Self-Efficacy
Biology, Diseases, and Economics
A Peculiar Sample
Slave Mortality
Preserving Slave Families for Profit
Race and Pregnancy Outcomes in the Twentieth Century
A Peculiar Sample
A Peculiar Population
Birth weights and infant mortality among American slaves
Heights and human welfare
The poor at birth
Fertility Differentials between Slaves in the United States and the British West Indies
Slave Child Mortality
Early life effects across the life course
Killing Me Softly
Diets Versus Diseases
Plantation Slave Mortality in Trinidad
Unequal at Birth
Trader Selectivity and Measured Catch-Up Growth of American Slaves
Work, Pregnancy, and Infant Mortality among Southern Slaves
The living standards of women during the industrial revolution, 1795-1820
Deficiency Diseases in the Caribbean
The Interregional Slave Trade and the Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market
The Economics of Antebellum Slave Heights Reconsidered
Nutritional Adaptation
Nutrition in a slave population
| Unique citing works | 17 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,55 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2024 (10) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |