ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

Anthropol Anz. 2018 Jun 11;74(5):365–376. DOI: 10.1127/anthranz/2018/0828

• This literature review evaluated the phenomenon of faster growth, earlier maturation and often taller adult height in migrant youth as compared to their non-migrant relatives.

• The authors propose a new framework to understand growth regulation and determinants of adult height that includes social networks as a growth regulating entity.

Nutrition, social conditions (housing, water, sanitation), economic status, psychosocial health and environmental factors are well-recognized determinants of human growth. This paper provides an anthropological perspective, arguing that social peer group and social status position of dominance or subordination are regulators of growth. They propose a new framework of determinants of adult height whereby nutrition, health and living conditions are merely prerequisites of growth, whereas social mechanisms function as regulators.

While this hypothesis is not scientifically proven in this paper, the authors carefully review historic and recent data that support it. By examining immigrant populations who moved from low- to high-income settings, the authors show a significant increase in the immigrant population’s mean height by as much as 2 S.D.S. (about 10 cm) over the period of one generation. They revisit previously described observations, that colonial populations who moved from high- to low-income settings where they assumed a dominant social status position grew taller than their peers in their country of origin. In the traditional concept of growth regulation, these marked changes in mean height are attributed to improved conditions affecting each individual’s growth. However, the population’s height distribution typically remains unchanged, suggesting that social- and community-based growth adjustment rather than individual factors may underlie the increase in mean height.

While the exact physiologic mechanisms that mediate the hypothesized social growth regulation remain elusive and hypothesis driven at best, the data and arguments presented raise the question whether the concept of stature as a social signal may be a missing link in our current model of growth determinants. This shift in conceptualization of growth regulation may be relevant for childhood stunting interventions in low- and middle-income countries (1). Formally testing this hypothesis is a key next step.

Reference: 1. Hossain M, Choudhury N, Adib Binte Abdullah K, Mondal P, Jackson AA, Walson J, Ahmed T. Evidence-based approaches to childhood stunting in low and middle income countries: a systematic review. Arch Dis Child. 2017 Oct;102(10):903–909. doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2016–311050.