Men Have Grown Twice As Much As Women Over Past Century, Study Shows 105
According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century. The Guardian reports: "We're seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles," said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton. Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Organization, overseas authorities and UK records to see how height and weight have changed with living conditions. The latter was measured by the human development index (HDI), a score based on life expectancy, time in education and per capita income, which ranges from zero to one.
Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women. To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm. "To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958," Halsey said.
Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled "The sexy and formidable male body: men's height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits," the scientists speculate that women's sexual preferences may have fueled a trend for taller, more muscular men -- although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular. Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favors men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others. "Women can find men's height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made," said Halsey. "As they've grown up, they haven't been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they've reached more of their height potential. It's an indicator that they're well-made."
Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women. To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm. "To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958," Halsey said.
Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled "The sexy and formidable male body: men's height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits," the scientists speculate that women's sexual preferences may have fueled a trend for taller, more muscular men -- although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular. Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favors men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others. "Women can find men's height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made," said Halsey. "As they've grown up, they haven't been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they've reached more of their height potential. It's an indicator that they're well-made."
Nutrition and "Natural" Selection. (Score:5, Interesting)
At first glance there seem to be (at least) two drivers for this IMHO:
Less men die so women have a larger pool of men to select from. Since evolution has them tend towards bigger stronger men, they get the boost.
Likewise women die less too, enlargening the pool of women to select from. Since men tend to choose women smaller / more petite than themselves, this is another evolutionary driver that solidifies the height gap.
A third point would be nutrition. Early plentiful nutrition is proven to enhance body mass and height. Nutrition has improved over most of the last century also causing this.
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At first glance there seem to be (at least) two drivers for this IMHO:
Less men die so women have a larger pool of men to select from. Since evolution has them tend towards bigger stronger men, they get the boost.
Likewise women die less too, enlargening the pool of women to select from. Since men tend to choose women smaller / more petite than themselves, this is another evolutionary driver that solidifies the height gap.
A third point would be nutrition. Early plentiful nutrition is proven to enhance body mass and height. Nutrition has improved over most of the last century also causing this.
I suspect this kind of thing is likely being skewed by the developing world, as the male children are the ones that go out and work, thus supporting the parents in old age, they get the benefits, likewise when there isn't enough to go around the female children tend to have theirs pulled. I.E. when parents don't have enough money to send both kids to school, the girl gets pulled out because she can do menial work. Not hard to see the same thing being done with food, when portions have to be cut back the gir
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I think that there's a distinction that needs to be made here, between natural selection that occurred in the past, and natural selection that's ongoing. Natural selection that's currently ongoing will result in evolutionary changes in the future. The data here needs to be explained in terms of natural selection that occurred in the past.
Basically, this data says that once nutrition (and environmental) constraints on height are removed, males increase in height and weight more than females, increasing the
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Less people dying just means population growth. Which we have obviously had a lot of.
But it depends a lot though on when they are not dying. If they are not dying after they have already had children, it doesn't make a difference to any sort of genetic selection.
Men are less likely to die due to being killed in war or other violent attack
Women are less likely to due due to being pregnant
Both are less likely to die due to poor healthcare
How do the ratios look between all these things.
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I think most of the growth in weight happens after the childbearing years.
(at least in developed countries)
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We are talking about height, not weight.
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You're bang on about nutrition. Testosterone has always been linked to increased height, so a uniform improvement in diet will produce sexually differentiated results. No genetic drift is required to produce these results, although epigenetic markers may cause them to take a generation or two to reach their maximum potential. (Humans retain a handful of nearly-useless epigenetic traits due to variations in chromatin structure. They mainly concern nutritive stress; basically, if your ancestors were constantl
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Yeah, that falls generally under "free love." I was originally going to put 'polyandry,' which would be closer, but I went with whatever sounded more glib.
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No worries, we'll have another world war soon and then lots of men will go die in ditches, and the taller ones will be more likely to be headshot in a trench. Problem solved!
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It's nutrition.
We can safely rule out the first two because natural selection doesn't really change the fact that the least attractive women and least attractive men are getting jiggy with it regardless. It may take them longer to find someone, but almost everyone (around 90%) eventually becomes a parent. People quite simply are not "selecting for" in the modern world, humanity hasn't really done that since civilization became a thing.
It also, FWIW, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. From what I can find ou
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*NF-kB
Re:Sex (and so gender) is a spectrum of features (Score:4, Insightful)
Spamming LLM garbage should be an automatic death sentence.
Re: Sex (and so gender) is a spectrum of features (Score:2)
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Yes. Pretty obvious to me anyway.
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There's no LLM that can come up with my level of logic and reasoning. People see long articles and their paranoia assumes it was LLM. A lot of times, their paranoia is correct, but it's often wrong for the following reasons:
1. Just because something follows an LLM like pattern it doesn't mean it's totally LLM. For example, a person may have a preference for typing in a similar style to the LLM or they may have pasted some parts from the LLM.
2. Just because a pattern based prejudice is able to correctly pred
Re: Sex (and so gender) is a spectrum of features (Score:2)
What makes you think this is "LLM garbage"? (Score:2)
I've been on Slashdot for 25 years now and post just about every day on various topics. Why would I post "LLM garbage"? What's the point? Especially if I want a meaningful discussion or contribute something meaningful?
Ok, my turn: ... But you _are_ on slashdot, so that does give you bonus points. Kudos to that. Keep it up. But don't jump to conclusions. And don't call for death-sentences. Grown-ups here don't do that. You're welcome.
You're making a lot of troll noises for a seven-digit slash-toddler *.
* I a
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if you've "'been on Slashdot for 25 years now" you'd recognize the OP and already know he is incapable of writing a post like that. Furthermore, he demonstrates no interest in "meaningful discussion". Lastly, it appears his ultimate interest was the anti-trans athlete screed at the bottom. You may have been around for a long time, but you aren't very observant.
"Ok, my turn:"
You should probably not brag so hard about your old-timer status when you demonstrate so little insight beyond loving your own insul
Slashdotter claims bragging rights! News at 11. (Score:2)
if you've "'been on Slashdot for 25 years now" you'd recognize the OP and already know he is incapable of writing a post like that.
No, I don't recognize, despite being a old regular. Perhaps it's because I haven't browsed on -1 for 10 years or so now.
You should probably not brag so hard about your old-timer status when you demonstrate so little insight beyond loving your own insults.
I officially have earned slashdot bragging rights and I will use them at my discretion! And you could admit that that insult _
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If you don't like it, cause you're of human retard spectral variant, don't read it.
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Sorry - should have put "TRIGGER WARNING FOR SENSITIVE CLODS" somewhere before that comment.
Or maybe quit with the LLM spam? Just maybe?
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And we don't say sex is a spectrum because some people have serious mental illnesses that lead to them insisting that their lives are one giant LARP in which ev
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If a human can exist without an arms, then we should not make it mandatory that a person provide their fingerprints to get a passport. Would you agree with that? So now imagine that the law stated "all humans must specify whether they are right or left handed"? Also, the statement "all humans have arms" is false.
I'm not sure what mental illness has to do with anything I'm saying. My point is that a person's sex-identification features exist such that they cannot easily be categorized as being a mere variant
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While sex may have a "spectrum of features", there are still only two sexes. Gender, however, has come to mean something different from sex; gender not only has a "spectrum of features", it exists on a continuum.
To have a genuine, good faith discussion on the topic, it is really best to avoid terms that are deliberately perverted to support narratives. "Gender" is one such word, in some contexts it is a synonym for "sex", while in others it means many different things, like sexual "characteristics", "featu
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You don't.
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What classifies something as a defect? If an M&M factory produces a striped M&M, is it correct to say striped M&M's don't exist, or that striped M&Ms are a variant of red M&Ms? And how do you know it wasn't intentional? The problem is that you've categorized humans into either male or female because 99% of people you've seen look either "male" or "female" .. and now, in many cases, you're trying to force a square peg into those round holes. None of you people who keep doubling down on "t
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Sex versus gender is an american thing.
I am not aware that any other English speaking country has a "gender definition problem".
And most languages I am aware of: have only one single word. Which means Sex. Sex and Gender is the same. There is no "fluidity". I might be male by birth and female by mood ... my sex is male. Simple.
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Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
It always amuses me when I hear women biatch about the fact that "all men are a-holes!", completely ignoring the fact that this is sexual selection by prior generations of women being expressed in modern males.
If you don't want a-holes, stop doinking them?
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You need only look at how rape works in various species to see that it can affect evolution. Most lady animals are on hormonal-based birth control at all times except when they want to get pregnant, and rape is very uncommon in those species. The more likely rape is to result in pregnancy, the more common rape is in that species.
On an unrelated note, did you know that Trump has recently passed a bill requiring the government to consider you genderless? (Ie you are not male and not female, unless your very f
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Is rape all that common that we'd see any statistically significant impact on gene pool?
Maybe in some hell hole nations where crime and tribal warfare are common, leaving women vulnerable we could see rape drive some shifts to genetics. In such places they are in a kind of death spiral that people can't build wealth because of the destruction, and its difficult to fend off the destroyers without the wealth for fences, sturdy buildings, and weapons. How does the saying go? Something like, "God made men an
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"Is rape all that common that we'd see any statistically significant impact on gene pool?"
Yes.
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You should probably take your discussions of gun control out of a discussion of rape, then take your. opinion on guns and shove them up your ass.
There are no "those wanting to disarm people" and there is not "changed argument against rifles". You are a MAGA idiot. The problem with the 2nd amendment is that you exist.
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A string of insults is not an argument. Didn't you have some lessons on proper debate at some point in your education?
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Is rape all that common that we'd see any statistically significant impact on gene pool?
Maybe in some hell hole nations where crime and tribal warfare are common,
... otherwise known as the whole globe over most of human history, yes. If you want to look into how rape can affect a species' evolution, look at ducks.
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... otherwise known as the whole globe over most of human history, yes.
This study wasn't covering the whole of human history, only the last 100 years.
How many rapes happen in a year versus consensual sex? How many of those rapes result in a live birth given that for much of the world there's access to "safe, legal, and rare" abortions? If rape is common, and abortion is safe and legal, then abortions will not likely remain rare. Birth control methods don't have a means to differentiate on if the woman gave consent or not, so if the woman is taking birth control pills then
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" "Nobody is wanting to take your hunting rifle." Probably because they want to take our hunting rifles now."
A hunting rifle does not have a 30 round mag.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Says who?
I take it you've never been feral hog hunting, and needing to unleash as many rounds as you can when you spot a pack of them....?
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A pepper spray is a lot more effective against rape than a gun, as the victim won't hesitate to use it and won't risk ending up in jail if she used it. Also no collateral damage and no risk of kids killing themselves if they find it in her purse...
There's a whole mess of problems with that statement but I'll just address one. While living under a "may issue" law for the concealed carrying of weapons the law required the same permit for pepper spray as for a firearm. A sheriff in a county near me simply refused to issue non-professional permits for concealed carry, and professional permits were rarely issued. That means a woman could not legally have pepper spray unless she had some job that required she have it, which usually involved people that
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America alone has over 1 million abortions a year.[snip]
This is a garbage claim and you should feel bad. NATURAL terminations far-outstrip this figure by a comfortable margin. Your sky-beard REALLY hates babies. I mean, *really* hates them. On a personal level
'
Or there is no sky-beard and there is nothing special about babies.
Secondly, we have been bypassing natural selection for some time now. We intentionally propagate damaged genomes via surgical or mechanical correction. Not sure what your magical point is, though.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Funny)
It always amuses me when I hear women biatch about the fact that "all men are a-holes!", completely ignoring the fact that this is sexual selection by prior generations of women being expressed in modern males.
If you don't want a-holes, stop doinking them?
Dark Matter and Female Logic.
Any man who has lived on this planet long enough knows damn well there’s only one of those mysteries worth solving.
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Love the sexism in a criticism of sexism. And humans have not been exhibiting "sexual selection" for a long time. Anyone who resorts to those types of arguments are no different than Jimmy the Greek. Look it up.
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It always amuses me when I hear women biatch about the fact that "all men are a-holes!", completely ignoring the fact that this is sexual selection by prior generations of women being expressed in modern males.
If you don't want a-holes, stop doinking them?
A couple things. You are correct that women search for a subset of males. And height is a big one. I'm 6 foot and still was barely tall enough for SO.
Also, there are the "tingles". A combination of excitement mixed with a bit of anxiety. Back in my late teens, early 20's, I was in a rock band, raced motorcycles and cars. My tude was aloof. I had no trouble receiving feminine attention. I was the nosy mommy list. They'd call and network with each other to point out the "bad boys" in town so mommy could te
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Interesting. I rarely hear such complaints. Must be a you problem.
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I'm 100% an a-hole. Life is awesome. Thanks for the concern, though.
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It always amuses me when I hear women biatch about the fact that "all men are a-holes!", completely ignoring the fact that this is sexual selection by prior generations of women being expressed in modern males.
If you don't want a-holes, stop doinking them?
Women don't tend to get that it's not all men that are a-holes. It's just the men they choose to interact with that are a-holes. Self-fulfilling prophecies are paramount in the dating scene, which thank dorg I haven't been part of in over twenty-five years. But even then, that was the way of it. Most women want the flashy, arrogant pricks, because they're "confident and strong." We really haven't evolved out of that whole mating display nonsense from so much of the animal kingdom. Gotta dance around with th
It's sexual strategy. (Score:2)
It always amuses me when I hear women biatch about the fact that "all men are a-holes!", completely ignoring the fact that this is sexual selection by prior generations of women being expressed in modern males.
The contemporary half-assed pseudo-feminism and it's misandry that 'ignores' evo-psych and uses socio-political agitation is a sexual strategy. Mostly subconscious. It's to expand female options and to limit male options. The fundamental problem is that within a species at a societal level hetero-mati
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"Why are women drawn to men behind bars?"
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
"...Three years ago a German waitress called Dagmar Polzin fell in love with a murderer while waiting at a Hamburg bus stop. She saw his photo on a Benetton anti-death-penalty poster. Bobby Lee Harris, a North Carolina man with an IQ of 75, was on death row for stabbing his boss to death during a robbery on a shrimp boat. Polzin was overwhelmed by the picture,
"It was something in his eyes," she later said. "There was this remorse, sad
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, to an extent yeah, of course? But past a certain point you get to where the guy starts looking intimidating and threatening to you, like he could crush you on a whim. Fear of domestic violence is surely a selective factor as well, and IMHO not well enough appreciated.
Also, IMHO, most straight men really overestimate how much of attraction is appearance-focused, and if they have trouble getting a date, obsess over things like working out rather than becoming a more appealing human being. I know straight men tend to be heavily appearance focused when it comes to women, but things like confidence are hugely important factors in how attractive men come across. It's a mix of factors. Also, whether the guy has enough of a brain to not do things that are a total turnoff. Like, if she doesn't smoke, and you do, maybe try not to smell like an ashtray? If she doesn't drink and you do, maybe don't insist on meeting in a bar? If she's speaking in one language, and you speak multiple, maybe don't speak in a different language than the one she's speaking? If she loves animals, maybe don't talk about hunting? Like, take a clue from her instead of just thinking about yourself, if your goal is to attract her.
Selective factors are always changing. In much of the world, for example, first children per couple dropped, then marriage rates dropped, and now dating rates have dropped as well. Rates of accidental pregnancy are also down. The decision on whether to have a child is now increasingly a personal decision, which would suggest more thought put specifically into genetics, rather than just "OMG this guy is SO hot, let's sleep together! ... Oops!"
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
But past a certain point you get to where the guy starts looking intimidating and threatening to you
Since women are infamously attracted to serial killers and horses that threshold is probably going to be something like a great white shark.
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Just like men vary in their attraction, so do women. Believe it or not, the vast majority of women absolutely do not want a serial killer.
In general, for a criminal to seem attractive to any meaningful number of people, there needs to be some sort of arguable heroism to them, or at least a sympathetic element. For example, for people mad at the US healthcare system (or US oligarchy in general), a lot of people have a crush on Luigi Mangione. Or to put it another way: Robin Hood would have had a lot of wome
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"Believe it or not, the vast majority of women absolutely do not want a serial killer."
You know you're on /. when someone feels the need to post a comment like that. I'd like to believe it's true, but not sure it is.
Sexual attraction is instinctual, there is no need to elaborate beyond that. Whether there was a survival benefit 100,000 years ago is irrelevant today, even though the instincts may still be there. It is also limitlessly complex and has influences that we may never know or understand. Doesn
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But past a certain point you get to where the guy starts looking intimidating and threatening to you
Since women are infamously attracted to serial killers and horses that threshold is probably going to be something like a great white shark.
We must remember, Charles Manson was married while in prison.
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past a certain point you get to where the guy starts looking intimidating and threatening to you
Women apparently love that, or at least enough of them to where it's not a detriment. I'm two meters tall and have had some very short girlfriends who got a lot of dirty looks from a lot of taller women when they were out in public with me. They all said they loved how big I am, because it made them feel little, as if they weren't already.
most straight men really overestimate how much of attraction is appearance-focused, and if they have trouble getting a date, obsess over things like working out rather than becoming a more appealing human being
I think it's worse than that. I think they think that being more roughy toughy intolerant assholey is what makes them a better man.
I am only 5 foot 10 (Score:3)
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Move to S. California, 5'10" is tall there. Immigrants tend not to be so tall. (When their children drink milk they tower over them.)
Re: I am only 5 foot 10 (Score:2)
Oh goody, more bad science reporting (Score:2)
The obvious question that comes up for me in this survey is, did they correct for the possibility that men actually have it better than women, and that's why men grew more? E.g., did they check heights of women in countries where women's rights are better? I'm not saying the result is wrong, but I didn't see any reporting that answers this question, and it was the obvious question that occurred to me. E.g. in some countries included in the survey, women take a huge caregiving burden on average compared to m
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I see the contrary; the article is more honest reporting than everything in the last decade or so. You see, every difference is a result of an evil social construct run by (white) men. I am not trolling; this is the official position about everything in our society. At every level.
Any other explanation, particularity one that is rooted in (evolutionary) biology is cancelled. Often with violence. Anywhere in the western academia including the biology departments.
In fact, I fully expected the article to claim
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"You see, every difference is a result of an evil social construct run by (white) men. I am not trolling; this is the official position about everything in our society. At every level."
No, you're trolling.
In fact, your post demonstrates my hypothesis, that the "research" is targeted at right wing politics by appealing to bigots.
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They discovered the average penis length was longer, by 1/4 inch. Although, this was a cross-country comparison, not before-and-after, so the difference might have existed when women's rights were equally poor.
Another change to the human body: It's well-known that female average breast size has increased by one (Western) cup size in countries eating mostly red meat.
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Men don't grow when they are men, they grow when they are children, just like women. Women's rights may have an impact, but what matters is how children of different sexes are treated.
I agree, though, that it's just bad science. It appears more to be pandering to the right wing than trying to improve understanding. To be actual science, first they should verify whether observed results differ from what would be expected. Instead, they merely offer that observed results tell us about natural selection.
Yeah? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's pretty common knowledge that the current criteria amongst women for minimum acceptability of a male is "six-six-six", which is short for 6 feet tall, with a 6 figure income, and a... well, let's just say "six-pack abs".
When coupled with age factors, it is many women going after a vanishingly small number of men.
Indeed, the guys they do after on the dating apps usually miss the six figure income, but hey, a girl has her needs, so if the guy is hot and will make a foodie call, he's good for some fun, amirite?
As we've made the pool of eligible bachelors bigger, women's minimum requirements just rose and rose.
And in irony, the older a woman gets without a partner, her "bare minimum" requirements just increase.
There is a lot of Koyaanisqatsi (life out of balance) going on. This is not some sort of "men want women barefo
This is noticable in watching old TV shows (Score:1)
I was watching some old TV shows for a while and I noticed that the men seemed so slender. I thought it was some kind of scaling issue with my TV, the 4:3 format show didn't scale right to a 16:9 screen. I later watched some podcast where the host commented on how much thinner people were in the past, and it was quite visible among the male cast of most every TV show made since the early days of color television. That tells me this isn't exactly subtle, and that the time frame for this change to be visib
"women?" (Score:1)
Not sure what this article is about. "Woman?" Are we sure we know what that is? How do we know it's not just a transvestite. Are we allowed to distinguish now or is that still a wrongthink?
I am 5'4" (Score:1)
Survey says.... (Score:2)
Timeframe? (Score:2)
Is this a clumsy or out-of-context way of saying that sexual selection in the past is suspected of predisposing men to turn available calories into height; or are they actually positing a meaningful amount of selection-driven phenotypic change in the past 100 years; despite human generations being comparatively long?
The former seems at least plausible; I'd assume that both responses to 'best
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Sexual dimorphism in nature tends to correlate with a species' mating behavior. The larger the difference, the less likely monogamous pairings are.
But humans' dimorphism is typically not all that great. Men have more muscle, usually assumed to be due to male competition, women have more fat, usually assumed to be selected for its role in supporting pregnancy.
In terms of height, a lot of that seems to be diet. I haven't read anything specific on the subject, but there are plenty of male-female sibling pai
The number for relative change is a lot smaller (Score:1)
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Men have always been larger the women, so if there is an increase is weight and height men should increase more than women
Bingo! Basic math.
In addition, it could very well also be that women have long essentially had the opportunity to get equal portions as desired, yet have lower overall calorie requirements - meaning they were genetically more close to getting "enough" than their male counterparts.
I was Just Looking Into This (Score:2)
From CDC 1960-1962 [cdc.gov], for ages 18-64 the 50-th percentile man was 68.6 inches (174 cm) and 157 pounds (71 kg). While the 50-th percentile woman was 63.9 inches (162 cm) and 126 pounds (57 kg).
From CDC 2015-2018 [cdc.gov], for ages 20+ the 50-th percentile man was 69.1 inches (175 cm) and 193 pounds (87.4 kg). While the 50-th percentile woman was 63.5 inches (161 cm) and 161 pounds (73
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The CDC publishes survey data for the size of Americans. I was looking through the data a few days back purely out of idle curiosity.
From CDC 1960-1962 [cdc.gov], for ages 18-64 the 50-th percentile man was 68.6 inches (174 cm) and 157 pounds (71 kg). While the 50-th percentile woman was 63.9 inches (162 cm) and 126 pounds (57 kg).
From CDC 2015-2018 [cdc.gov], for ages 20+ the 50-th percentile man was 69.1 inches (175 cm) and 193 pounds (87.4 kg). While the 50-th percentile woman was 63.5 inches (161 cm) and 161 pounds (73.1 kg).
So, over that time median American men grew half an inch and 36 pounds and American women shrank by a bit under half an inch and gained 35 pounds. Clearly something is going on. I haven't seen more recent data than 2018, but I expect the trend to continue.
Dammit! I read from the wrong column for 1960-1962 data. The correct values are:
For 1960-1962 ages 18-79 (tables 1 and 2): 50th percentile male height is 68.3 inches (173.5 cm) and 166 pounds (75.5 kg). The 50th percentile female height is 62.9 inches (160cm) and 137 pounds (62.3 kg)
So the change in 50th percentile from 1960-1962 to 2015-2018 is +0.8 inches and +27 pounds for men and +0.6 inches and +24 pounds for women.
Anyone looking at food? (Score:2)
Really? No jokes about compensation? (Score:2)
So I'll ask the obvious question:
Have the gains in height and weight been offset anywhere?
For example in intelligence and related voting behaviors? Where oh where could I find an interesting example?
Re: (Score:2)
Women select larger men because they are hoping they are proportionately larger everywhere.
NBA (Score:2)
This trend is purely the result of infanticide of babies who are unlikely to become NBA stars.
Get real (Score:2)
Women are just hoping they are proportional.