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Human Height - Our World in Data

ourworldindata.org · 7,074 words · saved by 1 readers

The average height of a population can inform us about the nutrition and living conditions of populations in the past for which we have little other data.

Contents Poor nutrition and illness in childhood limit human growth. As a consequence, the average height of a population is strongly correlated with living standards in a population. This makes the study of human height relevant for historians who want to understand the history of living conditions. Because the effect of better material living standards is to make people taller, human height is used as an indirect measure of living standards. It is especially relevant for the study of living conditions in periods for which little or no other data is available — what historians refer to as the

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