Why Americans are getting shorter

Americans are shrinking! Over the past 100 years, Americans went from being some of the tallest people in the world to ranking somewhere smack in the middle. Though bias from self-reporting has long been considered a factor in this height assessment, experts have confirmed that the population is indeed becoming shorter. That change is due to health factors and nutrition, with the decline overwhelmingly linked to growing wealth inequality in the United States beginning in particular around the 1980s.

A new low

Americans' heights have been on the decline since the late 1980s and the early 1990s, according to a study published in the journal eLife. In 1914, American men ranked third-tallest in the world, and women ranked fourth-tallest. Now, they have fallen to 37th-tallest for men and 42nd-tallest for women, after the two groups hit the American peak average height in 1996 and 1988, respectively. The study looked at growth trends for 187 countries between 1914 and 2014 and found that Dutch men and Latvian women had the tallest average height for that period.

The National Health Interview Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a decline in American height over those same 100 years. Since the height data was self-reported, some of the shrinkage was attributed to people finally being honest about their heights. This also aligns with the data showing that the tallest profession for both genders was public official, a profession, according to The Washington Post, "known for its spin skills." Nonetheless, experts found the height decrease was not simply hearsay. "If anything, self-reported heights underestimate our national shortening," the Post added. As for public officials being the tallest, bias is likely to blame because the general population tends to prefer taller public officials. 

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There was a particular decrease in average height in those born after the 1980s, also known as millennials, although the decrease was only an average of a few quarters of inches. This coincided with a shift in American politics that changed the country's health and economic landscape.

Declining wealth and health

A decline in Americans' health is likely a major factor in Americans shrinking. "Height is strongly influenced by the mother's nourishment during pregnancy and the child's during infancy," explained The New York Times. "Height is also linked to overall health and well-being." During the 1980s, new economic policies increased the country's wealth inequality, reducing lower-income families' access to nutritious food. 

This shift spilled into healthcare access. "The U.S. fell behind European countries because Europe adopted a welfare-state approach, which meant cheap medicine for the individual," and now "even poor people can afford to take their children to the doctor," University of Munich economics professor John Komlos told the Post. These years were the prime growing era for the millennial generation. Professor Majid Ezzati, who conducted the eLife study on height, said in an interview, "There are people that are eating well and there are people who are actually eating, maybe a lot of calories, but low-quality calories, and that inequality is contributing to putting down the average."

Obesity is bound to wealth inequality, and income disparity has been linked to stunted growth in children. Ezzati explained there are still a lot of calories being consumed in the U.S., but the country "has become more obese than any other wealthy country" because the calories consumed "are not really high-quality calories." One of the outcomes of obesity is early puberty for children, leading to increased levels of estrogen in both boys and girls. Higher estrogen levels cause bones to "grow taller, faster, but then … growth plates fuse earlier," Louise Greenspan, a pediatric endocrinologist at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, told the Post. In turn, children's bones stop growing sooner, and height can be stunted. Ezzati concluded that the optimal ways to increase overall height are "good social services, good welfare, good health care, good nutrition, good public health."