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But Bogin, of Loughborough University in England, and other researchers think there’s more to it than just better health. Even wealthy children in Guatemala tend to be shorter than children who grow up in the United States. Moving a child from one society to another — even if their lifestyle doesn’t change significantly — shifts their growth trajectory to match that of children in their new community, Bogin says.
His proposal that height has a social component rests on evidence that genetics and nutrition can’t explain all variation in human height (SN: 5/13/20). It’s also based on research in behavioral ecology showing that the growth of many social animals adapts in response to members of their community, a phenomenon referred to as “strategic growth.” In species with rigid hierarchies, dominant members often grow larger while subordinate members stay smaller.
Strategic growth also drives growth in humans, Bogin proposed in 2021 in Human Biology and Public Health. His research suggests that height not only reflects a person’s perceived social status within their community, but also their society’s underlying political and economic conditions. For instance, height disparities are wider in highly unequal societies and shrink in more egalitarian ones. When people in highly stratified countries move to more egalitarian communities, they tend to grow taller, studies of Western countries suggest. Based on animal research, Bogin suspects hormones, including those released when the body is under stress, may modulate the social aspects of height.
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