Within the course of the 20th century the American population went through a metamorphosis from being the tallest in the world, to being among the most overweight. The American height advantage over Western and Northern Europeans was between 3 and 9 cm in the middle of the 19th century....

Of all the functions of government, or the State, national defense is generally considered to be the most essential. Ideally, national defense should be a service provided by government to the people. The service entails protection from aggressors outside the State’s jurisdiction, usually...

Using a new source of 19th century state prison records, this study contrasts the biological living conditions of comparable US African-American and white female statures during economic development. Black and white female statures varied regionally, and white Southeastern and black Southwestern...

Background: The trend in the BMI values of the US population has not been estimated accurately because time series data are unavailable and because the focus has been on calculating period effects.Object: To estimate the trend and rate of change of BMI values by birth cohorts stratified by...

The trend of the height of Indian scouts in the U.S. Army born between ca. 1825 and 1875 is analyzed. Their average height of ca. 170 cm (67 in.) confirms that natives were tall compared to Europeans but were nearly the shortest among the rural populations in the New World. The trend in their...

Little research exists on the body mass index values of late 19th and early 20th century African-Americans. Using a new BMI data set and robust statistics, this paper demonstrates that late 19th and early 20th century black BMI variation by age increased in their mid-30s but declined at older...

Much has been written about the modern obesity epidemic, and historical BMIs are low compared to their modern counterparts. However, interpreting BMI variation is difficult because BMIs increase when weight increases or when stature decreases, and the two have different implications for human...

Using a new source of 19th century state prison records, this study contrasts the biological living conditions of comparable US African-American and white female statures during economic development. Black and white female statures varied regionally, and white Southeastern and black Southwestern...

Little research exists on the historical relationship between BMI variation, wealth, and inequality. This study finds that 19th century US black and white BMIs were distributed symmetrically; neither wasting nor obesity was common. Nineteenth century BMI values were also greater for blacks than...

In 1979, when anthropometric history was still in its infancy, Robert Fogel and collaborators reported that the height of the US male white population began to decline quite unexpectedly around the birth cohorts of 1830. This was quite a conundrum on account of the fact that according to...