TY  - JOUR
AU  - Floud,Roderick
AU  - Harris,Bernard
TI  - Health, Height and Welfare: Britain 1700-1980
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 87
PY  - 1996
Y2  - May 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0087
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0087.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Roderick Floud
Gresham College
Barnard's Inn Hall
Holborn
London EC1N 2HH
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 44 (0)7711 495 890
Fax: 44-207-8628657
E-Mail: Provost@gresham.ac.uk
AB  - This paper reviews the evidence regarding the main trends in the height of the British population since the early eighteenth century.  We argue that the average heights of successive birth cohorts of British males increased slowly between the middle of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  Average heights fell during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, before rising from the 1850s onwards.  This analysis is supported by an examination of the main trends in children's heights during the twentieth century.  Our findings are compared with the results of an alternative method of measuring human welfare - a modified version of the United Nations' Human Development Index.  The main trends in human development reinforce the conclusions drawn from our own interpretation of the anthropometric evidence.
ER  -