UK children shorter than EU children

[Popcorn121]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/21/children-raised-under-uk-austerity-shorter-than-european-peers-study

I listened to James O’Brien on LBC today talking about the above, the conversation was all about UK poor diet and parents being blamed for not feeding their children well (due to austerity). But AIBU to think that height is mostly determined by genetics? Yet this isn’t mentioned, maybe people in the UK are more likely to be shorter due to genetics? I’m shorter and ex is on the shorter side, even though I feed my kids fruit and veg and healthy protein like salmon and chicken they are still going to be short. I know a lot of families like this.

We are probably a more mixed country than many other European counties though? And even more so for children born this century. So it’s hard to adjust for that in the statistics. My DC would put ‘white British’, but my exceptionally tiny DS gets his height (or lack of) from DH’s Southern European mother. My tall Scottish genes got overriden.

That said, it doesn’t surprise me, it’s not even necessarily linked to austerity, I think U.K. children generally have a worse diet that mainland Europe.

I think it’s probably just a lack of protein and dairy. There was a study that showed that vegan kids were 3cm shorter on average. So if your access to protein or dairy is restricted by choice or by poverty or health reasons then not surprising really.

I immediately thought of a country renowned for its short leaders- France!

Indeed, would be very interesting to find out if Asian immigration is a factor, also how it breaks down regionally, and more to the point, on social status. Pretty sure rich people won't be getting shorter...

This is a lot to do with dairy or, I suspect, what's in our dairy as a result of hormones and medications given to cattle.

Or, it could be that in UK (culture, or climate) children spend more sedentary time indoors on screens, instead of excercising outside absorbing vit D to make strong bones.
The use of sunscreens and covering skin to avoid skin cancer, may be connected to lower levels of Vit D
The increase in migrants from poor countries may also be a factor.

Unless a research project considers such variables , don't make assumptions on what the results mean.

The research will adjust for genetics. They’ll have the children’s parents heights and will model the data to see if that is a factor. That they’re saying this about nutrition suggests that modelling showed the genetic argument
didn’t hold

Yes I was thinking the exact same thing reading the article

This makes no sense. Over several generations your ancestors Eastern European DNA has mixed with that of several other families from other parts of the world. The resultant height of offspring will have far more to do with that than diet.

poor diet has a definite impact. Lifestyle is shittier and indoors. You see it in schools clearly. Boys attending schools in affluent areas visibly taller and better built than boys in poorer areas. Even skin differences with that greyish tone. Teachers changing schools and changing towns often notice this if theyve gone from an affluent area to poorer and vise versa.

my dad was poorly nourished as a child and the stunted growth is visible (1950’s - his dad had died so one parent home pre-any sort of help) and his legs just stopped growing. They are significantly shorter than mine. But his body is longer. He is inches shorter than his great uncles were decades earlier (different country).

english children are indoors, eating poorly and not exercising. Ive no experience of a significant number of children in the rest if the uk, but cannot see wales and scotland being any different.

Short and round. Stunted height but fat. Too much of the 'wrong' foods. Even 'wrong' foods wouldn't make them fat if they didn't eat too much of them.
I don't think the impact will be seen just yet, it's the toddlers now rather than the teens. and, of course, the MN tall, sporty, handsome/beautiful teens

I had no idea about this.

Height does not mean anything at all. Just that, inches

My ds drank milk till the cows came home. He was obsessed by sport. Sadly none of this turned him into a giant- he is shorter than dh who lived on crisp sandwiches as a child.

This is not a surprise. The ‘small but healthy’ debate years in ago in India was in part to do with the link between poverty, diet, and height. Also the generations following the Dutch famine,

There will be a genetic limit to how tall you can be, if you had a very nutritious diet as a child with no health problems you are probably as tall as you were ever going to be.

Maybe it’s for the best anyway, the size of houses or airline seats the next generation will have to squeeze into probably doesn’t favour the long legged.

It’s the Guardian. You have to take it with a pinch of salt because a lot of what is written in the Guardian is propaganda.

Maybe it’s worth considering the impact of changing demographics of UK on this one. Immigration, especially from parts of the world where average heights are shorter has a lot to do with this.

On the radio they explained that the study uses 5 year olds because at that age the height correlation is mainly to do with health and nutrition and all over the world is height difference at that age is used as an indicator of wealth/poverty

The genetic component of height is more important as kids get older (puberty??) so then country by country comparison becomes less meaningful

I think you didn't read the article properly @Popcorn121 which says Average height of boys and girls aged five has slipped due to poor diet and NHS cuts, experts say

FFS, the scientists are leaders in their field. If this was due to genetics they would be capable of identifying that.

The impacts of austerity are widely visible.

the study will adjust for this.

As if they just didn't factor this in

What is with all these post about UK versus Europe 🙄

As as an aside on R4 today there was an programme that stated that in the USA people are overweight and obese bust staving if nutrition and the majority of the "normal" weighted people are diabetic.

We are eating more expensive processed food than ever and there is no nutritional value

This also goes back to this

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

As if every medical study done in the last 3 years turned out to be true (insert emoji to try and look clever)

Even just anecdotally, when I worked across different schools I could see a massive difference in the size of children in affluent areas and those in deprived areas. It’s like night and day.

My son is in a football leagues that means he plays with teams from a range of demographic areas. Some deprived ares and some wealthy areas. I have observed in the deprived ares the boys are much chunkier and it some cases bugger and taller. His team (from a wealthy area) are generally thinner and lankier but not noticeably taller so i don't know about this theory!