British children shorter due to poor diet

[Catosaurus]

Experts have said a poor national diet and cuts to the NHS are to blame. But they have also pointed out that height is a strong indicator of general living conditions, including illness and infection, stress, poverty and sleep quality. Food experts point out that a diet of cheap junk food makes people simultaneously overweight and undernourished.

Has it really become this bad? I’m not from England, but this is on the news today.

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

Maybe their food contains more growth hormones, or additives?

Why do people always think the UK has got it wrong?

What's causing children in other countries to be taller than their parents who were born in the 70s and 80s ? The 70s and 80s weren't exactly periods of loads of poverty.
Is it necessarily a healthy thing?

@Wenfy well both my bottle fed children are 6'5" and 6'2", neither overweight. me and my husband are of average height. So much for your breast fed theory.

@CrazyArmadilloLady I agree-but add it to all the people on here who also have well fed teens and young adults of average size and the ones I know too and it's a bigger sample.

The Brits aren't a particularly tall race- when we lived in Copenhagen there were a lot of strapping young adults and teens over 5ft 10 of both sexes- same in Netherlands- I just think genetically they are taller- taller parents often have taller kids and so on and so on-

Sorry, but what is D&V?

Husband is Australian and said at school everyone's lunches were usually a sausage roll or ham and cheese sandwich.

Doesn't strike me as very healthy of nutritious. But he's still healthy.

I think in the UK there is a huge snacking culture. Feeding children Wotsits is usual. People just need to eat 3 meals a day that's it. Dessert on the weekend/special occasions.

@Wenfy like with norovirus

Sample of 1 strikes again 

@Wenfy
My 1 yo is formula fed and is 80th percentile.

I'm not sure the conclusions in the article are supported by the study. For example, Germany has a much more proactive approach to height. When our German friend's DCs were small (both in age and height) they were offered supplements and treatment to encourage growth. Our friends declined. But that's never something that has been offered as standard by the NHS. We don't have a culture that sees 'being taller' as something that should be medically induced.

Some key words from that post - ‘extended breastfeeding’, ‘often’, ‘linked to’. And these studies are at a population level.

Your sample size of 2 means nothing.

And nowhere did that pp say IF you do X, Y will definitely happen (see key words above).

This is in NO WAY disparaging bottle feeding.

These threads are painful to read, thanks to people continually asserting anecdote = data.

I mean we can’t deny there have been a lot of hungry children the past few years ? Malnutrition is known to affect growth. Genetics play a part as does nurture

Potentially yes! I have a DS age 14 who eats everything and always has - almost my height at 5’7”

And DD age 9 I honestly thought to myself when she was a baby/toddler, “if can just get her to eat enough to stay alive…” and she is now the smallest in her class, very slim, but also very very healthy. She’s the fastest child in her year, picked first for every sporting event. And now, at 9 years old she eats everything I put in front of her - we eat home cooked from scratch meals with lots of fresh meat and veg

On a further note - DD was referred to specialists from age 9months to age 3 for her lack of growth/weight gain. I think she was born heavier than she should have been. Anyway - all worked out fine in the end!!

Well, the French and Spanish are smaller than the UK. Scandis and Dutch are taller. Somalians and Kenyans are taller than North Africans. Singaporeans are taller than Chinese people.

Diet does have an effect on height? Yes.

But genetics are stronger.

I know everyone on MN has gigantic children, however, my well-nourished and extended BF children are both smaller than me and DH.

I'm 5' 9", DH is 6' 1". So tall-ish.

However I am from a family of fairly small people, as is DH. My Mother is 5' 1", I have two sisters, the tallest is 5' 2". My aunties are 4' 11".

My dad is an only child of 6'. His mother and father were shorter than him.

My husband is the tallest in his family of seven siblings. His father was 5' 6".

So my husband and I were outliers in our pretty small families, and despite good nutrition and extended BFing, it seems that our children are not going to be as tall as us. DS is 16, hit puberty at 11 and is 5' 6", he hasn't grown much for three years. He may get taller than me, I don't think he will though. He is, however, a perfectly built and incredibly strong smallish person, he is wasp-waisted and muscled. My DD is similarly built. Small, slim, strong.

There's no inherent moral superiority in being tall.

It doesn't mean you were better nourished as a child, it doesn't mean your brain is larger.

It just means you are taller.

That's all.

Height is determined by both your genetic makeup and your environment. Your environment (eg. diet) won't be able to overcome your genetics entirely but it can influence whether you reach your full potential height. Hence it being possible to bring up a short child who has a great diet, or a tall child with a poor diet. The former might be a child who has reached their full potential while the latter could have been even taller. The meaningful information comes when you compare thousands or millions of people to get a picture of whether a population is reaching their potential height as an indicator of overall health.

Correlation does not mean causation. British kids may be shorter but it's not because of their diets. Britain is one of the richest countries in the world and we look after our kids well. I struggle to believe that our kids have poor nutrition. Maybe it's just hereditary.

Not within my family 5DC and the shortest our DD is just under 5ft 10,our 15 year old DD is already 6ft and the youngest of our sons is 6ft 4, I'm only 5ft 6 but lots of people in my extended family are tall as well and there's a few hundred of us,no idea what difference it makes if any but all of our DC and most of the other children within my extended family were breastfed and we all come from families that cooked most meals from scratch.

It's awful though and a real worry hearing that lots of children are being effected in this way.

This has changed a lot in the last 15 or so years. A lot more healthy food from around the world, wholemeal bread/wraps, veg and fruit are brought in. There’s also ‘crunch n sip’ in most schools where kids also bring in a veg/salad-y snack. I’m not even talking about wealthy suburbs or schools. Though it does depend to a degree on how diverse the demographic is in a school. And nutrition remains an issue in remote Aboriginal communities.

This isn’t directed at me but my 18yo is this height.

I am 5.4 and his dad is 5.11

ds2 is 6 foot at 16 and not through puberty yet.

ds1 eats far better than ds2

Ancient Britons were short, stocky little people. A lot of the UK is genetically related to them.

This thread is really interesting

it shows almost nobody is interested in the science, and is overruling scientific findings with their own sample size of 1 or 2

it explains the anti vax and flat earth popularity, as everyone knows better than whatever it is scientists have found

Having moved to the U.K. 20 years ago, and wanting to add my own sample of 1, I think the country has a very poor food culture: cereal or toast for breakfast, sandwich and crisps for lunch, lots of snacks, something beige from the freezer for dinner. I don’t know any other country where it’s normal to have crisps every day with your lunch 😮

Those are two nutritionally poor meals. No wonder British kids are suffering malnutrition if that is viewed as good options. It’s just a load of heavily processed food, except the apple

Well, I was addressing the issue of children being hungry in school.

However, it's also nutritionally good - could be even better with some small additions - but the parents often can't be bothered.

Yes, a lot of it is genetics - the people of the Netherlands are naturally the tallest people, I think.

Having moved to the U.K. 20 years ago, and wanting to add my own sample of 1, I think the country has a very poor food culture: cereal or toast for breakfast, sandwich and crisps for lunch, lots of snacks, something beige from the freezer for dinner. I don’t know any other country where it’s normal to have crisps every day with your lunch

That's not the UK I recognise food wise.

Cereal and or toast can be a perfectly healthy choice for breakfast depending on the cereal, bread etc.

Ditto a sandwich or wrap for lunch - depending on what you put in it.

British kids eat more UPF than kids from any other European country. It’s partly poverty and partly cultural.

Although if you go to some Eastern European countries there's a huge amount of processed food and they seem to sell a lot of Fanta.