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The Incredible Shrinking Americans

Once upon a time, in the 1950s to be less than exact, Americans were the tallest people in the world. But since then, Americans have gotten shorter (and fatter), at least when compared to the people of other industrialized nations.  Paul Krugman writes about the phenomenon, citing research published in Social Science Quarterly. That research, by economic historian John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale, points out that height is indicative of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment.
Krugman, an economist whose frequently expressed opinions about American health care are never charitable, sums up his thought like so:
"Whatever the full explanation for America’s stature deficit, our
relative shortness, like our low life expectancy, suggests that
something is amiss with our way of life. A critical European might say
that America is a land of harried parents and neglected children, of
expensive health care that misses those who need it most, a society
that for all its wealth somehow manages to be nasty, brutish — and
short."
Read more about the incredible shrinking Americans.

One Comment

  1. Doe Zwick

    Did the “Americans are getting shorter” study take into consideration not only Asian imigrants but the HUGE number of Mexican imigrants that have flooded the USA in the past 10 years. They would have a big influence on the stature of Americans.

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