Why are the Dutch the tallest. The tallest and shortest inhabitants by country of the world Average height of different peoples of the world

The growth of a person, laid down genetically, is almost impossible to change, but a lot depends on the growth of a man and a woman in their life. Are modern people really superior to their ancestors? Why don't we grow all our lives? What is the maximum height of the human skeleton? And which of the famous people did you overtake in growth?

Human growth is one of the most important indicators of the state of the body. It depends on a whole complex of hereditary properties, intake of many substances, its hormonal regulation, environmental conditions, social status, etc.

Growth hormone, produced by the pituitary gland, stimulates the development of cells and tissues. The natural cessation of growth is not due to a lack of hormone formation by the pituitary gland, but to an age-related decrease in the ability of cells and tissues of the body to respond to the action of this hormone. Growth is also greatly influenced by insulin (pancreatic hormone), the products of activity and adrenal glands.

Excessive secretion of growth hormone leads to a disease such as acromegaly or gigantism, the lack of the same hormone - to growth retardation, up to dwarfism. Gigantism is more common in males. Lilliputians, or pituitary dwarfs, - proportional subjects. These include everyone whose height at the age of twenty does not exceed 140 centimeters for men, and 130 centimeters for women.

Growth also depends on social well-being. It has been noted that once the difference between an aristocrat and a poor man reached 20–22 centimeters. In the 13th century, the average height of recruits from the south of France was 154 centimeters, and from Paris - 162 centimeters; at the same time in Russia, the average height of service people was 162-164 centimeters, while Muscovites were taller than Novgorodians.

The growth of a newborn depends on the size of the parents, the size of the uterus, the nutrition of the mother, the presence or absence of toxic processes in her body, as well as the number of previous births. From birth to 7–8 years, boys and girls generally differ little in body length. After 8–10 years and up to fifteen years, girls grow somewhat faster, and then boys become taller than girls.

Girls stop growing at the age of fifteen or sixteen, boys - by the age of 18-21. The growth of bones in length is most often completed by the time of puberty, and in men it occurs later than in women, which is why they are often taller. Statistics show that over the past hundred years, the growth of adolescents has increased by an average of 10 percent, and this is about 17.5 centimeters.

At present, the average height of a Russian man is 176, Russian woman- 168 centimeters. On average, the height of men is 13.5 centimeters higher than the height of women.

Psychologists say that men have an irresistible desire to reach the 183-centimeter mark. At the same time, it is not excluded that the higher the man, the more sexually in demand he is.

Nowadays, the higher a woman is, the faster she climbs the career ladder. It is possible that its growth is due to a significant content in the body of the male sex hormone testosterone.

It is believed that a man should be taller than a woman. And if he is a ruler, a boss, then his figure, at least in the representation of subordinates and in the image (sculpture, painting), as a rule, rises above ordinary people.

According to American researchers, the height of the wife exceeds the height of the husband in only one out of 720 married couples. But A. Pushkin barely reached the shoulder of his wife Natalia Goncharova.

According to research, positive characters are more often presented as tall and physically strong people. And women of all cultural strata recognize tall men as more attractive.

Don Quixote had, judging by the famous literary work, a long, narrow torso. Sancho Panza, on the other hand, was short, stocky, with a short neck and massive musculature. Now think about how our ideas about these literary characters would change if they swapped bodies with each other ...

There is an international club, which currently has about 3 thousand people whose height exceeds 2 meters. If in the first years of the club's existence its members only consoled each other, then later they began to fight for the production of furniture, shoes and clothes designed for their growth, for taxation reduction, etc.

In A. Belyaev's fantasy novel "The Man Who Lost His Face", hormones "brought" the beautiful Gedda Lux to a height of 287 centimeters. Such growth in real people has not yet been recorded. But in life, men (their limb length usually exceeds the length of the body) have the following records: the Russian Fedor Makhnov reached 285 centimeters, the Finn Kajanus and the Dutchman Albert Cramer - 282. Records for women (they usually have the length of the body prevails over the length limbs): the German Marianne Veda was 255 centimeters tall, and the American Dolores Pullard was 250 centimeters tall. In Russia, the highest was, obviously, Elizaveta Lysko - 227 centimeters.

Today, the Turk Sultan Kosen is recognized as the tallest person in the world, his height is 247 centimeters, while the Chinese Bao Xishun has 236 centimeters. Zhytomyr resident Leonid Stadnik with a height of 255 centimeters is still an unofficial record holder and continues to grow.

In 1872, a Scottish woman Anna Swan (234 cm tall) and Captain of the Guards Martin Bates (218 cm tall) were married in England.

But there are limits to human growth. We cannot reach a height of 3-4 meters: our bones are not designed for such a load. Below I give data on the growth of a number of very famous people that I managed to collect, based on information in the periodical press.

Height of famous people

The shortest, obviously, should be recognized as a thirty-seven-year-old woman described in the 17th century by the French naturalist Buffon, who had a height of 43.3 centimeters, and a Filipino Juan de la Cruc, 48 centimeters tall. Today, the growth of the twenty-five-year-old Turk Suleiman Erie is 87 centimeters, and the eight-year-old resident of the island of Java Carey is 51 centimeters. In 2010, the eighteen-year-old Nepalese Gyanendra Tapa Magar, who is 55 centimeters tall, got into the Guinness Book of Records.

Often, in some states, undersized subjects also unite in clubs, because the tax authorities do not take into account that they have to order special clothes, shoes, furniture, adjust the car control system to fit their height, etc.

Looking at the expositions dedicated to the Middle Ages, you catch yourself thinking about the “historical” discomfort. Let's assume two components: the museum exhibits really real archaeological finds (not reconstructions), and the comments presented under the exhibits describe the realities of that time. Three inevitable questions then arise.

First, the size of medieval armor suggests that the growth of a “standard” knight did not exceed 140 cm. Accordingly, we make an allowance for his weight, maneuverability and combat equipment. But is it really so? The second - military uniforms (sword, spear, hammer, shield, etc.) demonstrate that the average height of a knight should be 168-173 cm, but not 140 cm.

Otherwise, the sword turns into a staff. The third is about the "historical" museums themselves. In most cases, we can observe reconstructed objects, that is, formalized ideas of historians about the objects of that time, but not the objects themselves, belonging to the era of the Middle Ages. In other words, if the average height of a warrior was 130-140 cm, then this means that in the 12-13 centuries AD. there was a completely inexplicable decrease in human growth. Indeed, at the turn of the first millennium, the average height of a European reached 170-173 cm and even slightly higher. In addition, the Romans who lived during the reign of Caesar-Nero were taller and more massive than their modern descendants.

Indicative in this respect is the story of the daughter of a German burgomaster, described in a medieval chronicle. The girl took everyone - both beautiful and well-behaved, and they gave her a dowry, only her height was too great - the same 170 centimeters.

In this logic, a modern adult male among the illustrious associates of King Arthur would look like Gulliver. But the whole evolution shows that people are constantly growing. From century to century. People are getting taller. The average human height increases by one centimeter every fourteen years. Accordingly, both the size of the chest and the parameters of the legs change. In the last 150 years alone, we have grown by more than 20 centimeters. The average homo height is 180 cm for men and 175 cm for women. And this number is growing every year. More than ten percent of the adult male population are over 190 centimeters tall. However, it is in the Middle Ages that a strange decline is observed, the causes and consequences of this process seem to be unclear.

What could be the explanations?

1. Suppose that there was no decrease in human growth in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, acceleration was observed, sometimes even cases of gigantism. Let's take as a starting point the decline of the Roman Empire - the 5th century AD. The average human height, according to scientists, was close to 170-172 cm for men and 164-165 cm for women. We will assume that since this period, the process of increasing growth has been continuously going on, at a rate not inferior to the modern one. Then we get at the turn of the first millennium the average height of men is 210-220 cm, for women - 192 to 198 cm. But this is not so. It turns out that at that time a certain physiological process was launched, which led to a loss of average height by 30-40 centimeters. In principle, from a biological point of view, such a phenomenon is understandable, since there are 3 main size limits for terrestrial creatures, especially mammals.
2. Animal bodies are supported by skeletons that must be strong enough to support their weight. The problem is that as overall body size increases, bone size must increase exponentially. This extra volume requires that the muscles, blood vessels, and organs such as the heart and lungs also expand accordingly, with the result that many of the soft organs of the body will simply be crushed by their own weight.
3. Large creatures have a problem with even circulation of blood to all parts of the body, because. gravity makes it gather at the feet. The heart, again, must expand exponentially in size to meet the circulation requirements of large organizations. On the other hand, the Earth has already experienced a period of gigantism of living nature. It really didn't seem to apply to people. And the explanation for this can be even simpler - the size of the planet itself has changed. The attraction was weaker, the level of atmospheric circulation was faster. After the volume of the Earth became more significant, the need for gigantomania disappeared, "unnecessary" species of animals and plants died out. What if the size of the Earth during the height of the Middle Ages also changed? Not as global as at the end of the Mesozoic, but still ...
4. The larger the animal, the smaller the ratio of its body surface to mass, it is more difficult for them to cool by transferring heat to the environment. And unlike whales, terrestrial giants are threatened with banal overheating. If our assumption is correct and, let’s say, at the turn of the millennium, there was a slight correction in the size of the Earth towards its increase, then along with the physics of the planet, the physiology of its inhabitants, including homo, also changed. By the way, the reason for the decline of the militant Scandinavian "civilization" is also known: the climate has simply changed. Gardening flourished in Greenland, fruit was grown, and lions were found in the British Isles, which to this day are considered a symbol of the islanders. And such metamorphoses cannot be explained solely by a change in the geography of the magnetic poles and ocean currents. By the way, the latter must also have its rational reasons.
5. Now let's turn our attention to historical museums from a business point of view. What is easier - to exhibit a real thing, dug out in medieval layers, or to present a reconstruction? Of course, layout by views. We discard the presentation as far-fetched by historians. From what is really found, what do we see: traces of battles? holes? Dents? They are not here. Just as there is no armor on the battlefields, and the Middle Ages are a time of constant wars, conflicts, and the creation of the first empires. Where are the traces of grandiose battles, except for the accounts of court chroniclers and monks?

Let's return to physics and physiology. We have: a tall hypothetical warrior 182cm, weight 90kg. Set of equipment: balaclava, underarmor, chain mail, helmet with brachnitsa, handcuffs, shoulder pads, knee pads, greaves. Iron sword and shield. Any biologist or even a doctor will say that with regular training, health is enough for a maximum of 5 minutes of combat, the helmet greatly narrows the field of view to 90-100 degrees. Overheating of the body, impaired circulation, risk of stroke and hormonal imbalance, a problem with the veins. When crossing, the speed is 2-3 km per hour at a pace, in reality a one-time transition is 4 km, then rest is necessary.

So the battles in the form that historians present to us are simply unrealistic. And the last. The first mentions of armor and knights in our "modern" sense are found ... in Cervantes in Don Quixote. Then came historical descriptions, battles, empires, absolutist monarchies. So the knights and chivalric romance may turn out to be an invention of the Spanish writer. And the armor on display in museums - without dents, holes and traces of battles - is not just children's costumes - although this cannot be ruled out - but examples of a kind of medieval "high" fashion. It is impossible to dress, but how to “sew” is understandable.

Americans are no longer the tallest people on Earth. According to Dr. John Komlos of the University of Munich, in 1850 the average white American was 173.69 centimeters tall. In 2000, the average height of a US citizen was 178.7 centimeters. For blacks in the United States, this figure is somewhat lower.

Over the same 150 years, Europeans have grown up much stronger, and now the palm belongs to the Netherlands.

If in 1850 the average height of a resident of this country was only 164.5 centimeters, then at the turn of the millennium it was 184.12 cm.

A German scientist has published a number of articles, in his opinion, explaining why Americans have greatly slowed down their growth since the 1950s and are now lagging behind, reports. Initially, Komlos suggested that the point was the possible influence of undersized migrants. However, when he conducted additional research, excluding fresh US citizens from the sample, the trend remained the same: the growth of Americans in comparison with Europe slowed down.

One of Komlos' articles indicates that since the 1950s, the average height of a child in the US has stopped increasing. At first it seems strange, because the standard of living of Americans is growing. The quality of medical care has also improved.

Apparently, the scientist from Munich believes, over the past decades, the diet of the American and his lifestyle have changed a lot.

The food is plentiful but unbalanced. The anthropologist draws a parallel between the decline in the growth rate of Americans (and, according to some sources, the first decline in the average height in 300 years) and the growing epidemic of obesity, especially in childhood. But it is the childhood years that are critical for the formation of growth. Although a person grows up to 20---25 years, the most important from the point of view of anthropometry are the 1st, 6-8th, and also 13-15th years of life.

In addition, according to Komlos, Americans have begun to pay less attention to children, which also affects their condition: many indicators related to the quality of life of children in the United States are much lower than in Europe. At the same time, this quality is lower even from the womb: the death rate during childbirth born with a weight below the norm, the level of infant mortality and child poverty, oddly enough, in the United States is still lower than in European countries (of course, in this case about Russia and other countries of the ex-USSR are out of the question).

However, many colleagues do not agree with the conclusions of their Munich colleague.

In their opinion, it is difficult to compare a country as large and heterogeneous as the United States with relatively small countries with low levels of immigration. “Well, to say: you just need to pour money into health care is a completely simplistic approach,” argues Komlos from the American Enterprise Institute.

According to opponents of the Munich study, the average height of citizens depends on too many parameters to draw such direct conclusions.

However, its dependence on the standard of living can be traced. And because growth begins in childhood, social upheavals are delayed.

Meanwhile, the average height of Russians is declining. The director of the Children's Health Research Institute, an academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, stated in 2006 that "the growth of Russians over the past ten years has decreased by one and a half centimeters."

The average height of a resident of Russia is 170 cm.

However, the decline is likely to continue. For example, now in the Urals, the average height of a newborn is 50 centimeters (in 1980, throughout the USSR, the average height of a newborn was 51.7 cm). Apparently, these Russians, when they grow up, will become even shorter.

Other countries are also concerned about the problem of average height. So, Vietnam several years ago adopted a program according to which the average height of a Vietnamese over the next 25 years should increase by 6.7 cm. According to the Vietnamese government, an increase in this indicator speaks best of the country's welfare.

The Vietnamese are going to achieve such growth, first of all, with the help of milk. The government of the country intends to allocate it to children from an early age. At the same time, since 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, the average height of Vietnamese men has increased from 157 centimeters to 163 centimeters. And no milk. And in Russia, dairy kitchens have existed since Soviet times. And they don't help you grow. And if Dr. Komlos is right, then with the spread of fast food, children will grow even more slowly, because past the hamburger eateries they

You can often hear that in the Middle Ages, the average height of people was so lower than today that contemporaries would take them almost for midgets. As evidence, they often point to the knightly armor that has survived from those times, into which most modern men will not fit in any way. But the data of the opening of the tombs and anthropometric measurements of the skeletons of the buried show that the growth of a person over the past centuries has not changed so seriously, and among well-nourished aristocrats, he did not differ much from his contemporaries. But even without opening the graves, for example, such a unit of measurement as "foot" ("foot") - 30, 48 cm, the length of the foot of one of the British kings and the famous two-meter height of Peter I has come down to our days. As for the knightly armor of the past - then it is basically "children's armor" in which future knights, children and teenagers were trained in martial arts. Naturally, their size is smaller than the size of armor for an adult.

The average height of adult males from the Romanov (Zakharyin-Yuryev) family buried in the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow is 175.4 cm. The height ranges from 171 to 180 cm. All burials date back to the 16th century. The average height of peasants (also adult men) from burials of the 16th-18th centuries in the burial ground of the village of Isupovo, Kostroma Region, is 168.9 cm (range from 163.3 to 175.3 cm). Thus, the aristocracy is on average 6.5 cm taller than commoners.

It is strange that the average height of aristocratic women buried in the Novospassky Monastery is very close to the average height of peasant women from the Isupovsky burial ground. (154.7 and 155.1 cm, respectively). The disproportion in the height of men and women from the upper class, which is more than 20 cm, is surprising. I don’t know what this is connected with. There are some considerations, but I do not want to engage in speculation.

The data are taken from the articles: Vasiliev S.V., Borutskaya S.B. Anthropological study of the Isupovo burial ground, Kostroma region. Stanyukevich A.K., Chernosvitov P.Yu. Tomb of the Romanov boyars in Moscow's Novospassky Monastery. Both articles were published in the Bulletin of the Kostroma Archaeological Expedition, no. 2. Kostroma, 2006.

Acceleration

Some changes in the average height of people in the direction of its increase really began to occur only in the last two centuries, when a radical change in the way of life of people began: from more spacious and bright dwellings, to the spread of sanitation and hygiene, more regular, full and high-quality food. There is, however, another version: earlier, the tallest and strongest men were most often taken into the army, and they often died in the war, not having time to pass on their genes to offspring, and less tall ones bred. But already in the first half of the 19th century, such “anthropometry” became not so important in military affairs, in the 20th century, some military professions (tanker, pilot) at first required just “miniature” warriors, and therefore tall genes began to be passed on to offspring more often . One way or another, but the process of increasing average height really developed most rapidly in the second half of the 19th - most of the 20th centuries, after which it seemed to slow down and in some countries even went back. Although ... Everyday observations of the shelves of Moscow shoe stores, for example, show that back in the 1970s, 45th size of men's shoes was considered large, but today it is easy to find everywhere 46th, 47th, and even 49th and larger adolescents ceased to be surprised, as was the general growth of up to 2 meters and above.

Teach a fool to pray to God

he'll break his forehead.

It has long been known that over the past 100-150 years, the inhabitants of our country, like many other countries of the world, have grown considerably. Although the graph of S. Wheatcroft is not perfect, as it brings together data from different sources (differ in line color), it clearly shows a long-term (secular) upward trend in average growth.

From these data of historical anthropometry, some Internet publications conclude that in Stalin's time life became better and more fun than under damned tsarism. Times at Soviet power people were taller than under the king, which means they ate better and generally lived better. And all the facts that show that the pre-revolutionary standard of living was restored only by the beginning of the 1960s are lies of liberals and monarchists.

It would seem that here you can object? Indeed, other things being equal, those who ate better in childhood are more likely to grow up large. But it is important to understand that historical anthropometry, like any other method, has its own characteristics and limitations. If, however, we use its data uncritically, without thinking about their meaning, and use a calculator, and not the brain, as the main analytical tool, then the results are obtained in full accordance with the folk wisdom cited in the epigraph.

The Stalinists make an elementary logical error. Yes, improving living conditions contributes to an increase in the average height of people. But this does not mean at all that any increase in growth is necessarily due to an improvement in living conditions. If the direct theorem is true, the converse is not necessarily true either. As Kh.B. Vrungel successfully formulated, every herring is a fish, but not every fish is a herring.

Human growth is influenced by many other factors besides nutrition. So, Dr. Chao-Kyan Lai, a molecular biologist from Tufts University (USA), writes that the difference in people's height is 60-80% due to genetic factors, and only 20-40% of living conditions, including nutrition. In different countries and in different eras, the contribution of external and genetic factors may vary, but in general, the role of heredity is, of course, very large.

For example, racial characteristics are of great importance. Ethiopians are on average taller than Japanese, but this does not mean that the standard of living in Ethiopia is higher than in Japan. No less important is heredity in the family. Studies that have been conducted in many countries show a close relationship between the growth of parents and their children. For example, in Sweden, this factor alone explains (R2) 36-37% of individual growth fluctuations. This is close to the above upper bound on the total contribution of all external conditions taken together.

Among the external conditions that affect human growth, nutrition, for all its importance, is also far from the only significant factor. Professor T. Hatton from the University of Essex (Great Britain) analyzed the reasons for the increase in the average height of Europeans over the past 100 years and writes that they are far from being reduced to improving the diet. In particular, he draws attention to the role of sanitary conditions. The less children suffer from infections, the more likely they are to be tall when they grow up.

Let's look at the growth dynamics of the population of Russia in the light of this information. Until about the end of the 1950s, they This is indirectly confirmed by anthropometric data. Even in the USSR, scientific works were published that showed that “only in the 50s and 60s, the size<новорожденных>exceeded the medieval level and has now reached the level of the beginning of the century.

Despite this, even those who were born in the 30s, becoming adults, turned out to be on average not much shorter than the pre-revolutionary generation, and later on the average height of Soviet citizens increased markedly. What are the reasons for this? In addition to nutrition, this was influenced by at least two significant factors (in fact, there are, of course, more of them, but for the example we will limit ourselves to two). First of all, it is heredity. The process of increasing average height began even before the revolution. In post-reform Russia, after the abolition of serfdom, the economy developed rapidly, crops grew, and the standard of living of the population increased. The last case of mass death from starvation in the Russian Empire was the Tsar Famine of 1891-92. There were no more famines in our country before the establishment of Soviet power. Following these positive changes, the average height of those born at this prosperous time also increased.

On the graph, we see the average growth of recruits by year of birth. Note how it went up shortly after the abolition of serfdom, along with the increase in productivity that began at the same time and the general recovery of the economy. Thus, the parents of children who were born in the USSR in the 1930s were a relatively tall (compared to the previous) generation that was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Due to the significant influence of heredity on body size, they passed on to their children part of the positive growth dynamics laid down before the revolution.

Another important factor is the epidemiological transition, a sharp change in the sanitary and epidemiological situation. In the pre-war USSR, the level of general and infant mortality remained in line with pre-revolutionary trends, and one of its main causes, as before, was infectious diseases. However, during the Great Patriotic War the achievements of world pharmaceuticals - streptocide and antibiotics - were finally widely used in the USSR. In just a couple of years, this led to a radical decrease in the level of infectious diseases and mortality from them (see, for example: Sifman R.I. On the question of the causes of the decline in child mortality during the Great Patriotic War. // Life expectancy: analysis and modeling. M ., 1979. S. 50-60). Those who were born in the 1930s found this fracture in childhood or adolescence, that is, during a period of active growth. They were less exposed to infectious diseases than previous generations, and this also affected their average height.

So, pre-revolutionary children were born from relatively small parents (especially at the beginning of the process of increasing average height) and with a high level of infectious diseases. The increase in growth at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century is mainly associated with an increase in living standards. Children in the 1930s were born to comparatively tall parents and, thanks to new drugs, suffered fewer infections during the period of active growth than the previous generation. Despite these favorable factors, they did not, on average, always reach the height of their pre-revolutionary parents. This in itself says a lot about the standard of living in the 1930s. This is what the anthropometric history of Russia looks like, if we take into account the various factors that affect the change in growth, and not be limited to primitive interpretations at the level of the second, at best, the third experiment of the unforgettable Professor A.A. Vybegallo.

UPD. Despite many scientific papers that show a close relationship between the growth of children and parents, biologists unanimously say that the increase in growth from good nutrition is not inherited. If so, this is further evidence that it is dangerous to draw conclusions based on statistical correlations without analyzing causal relationships and mechanisms. I criticized the Stalinists for just such a formal approach, not assuming that I myself would immediately give a clear example of the justice of this criticism. Naturally, this does not affect the correctness of my main thesis. From the premise that good nutrition contributes to high growth, it is a mistake to conclude that any increase in growth is due to good nutrition. Severe laws of logic.

The tallest peoples in Europe

The Dutch and Montenegrins are considered the tallest in Europe - the average height of a man is 183.2 cm. Danes and Norwegians (182.4 cm), Serbs (182 cm), Germans (181 cm), Croats (180.5 cm) are a little behind them and Slovenes (180.3 cm).

Anthropometry is a measurement of the main physical indicators of a person. Science itself is used for many purposes, but at the end of the twentieth century, a direction began to develop, the researchers of which believe that linear series of measurements of the mass and height of human bodies can show an improvement or deterioration in living conditions over a measured segment. Of course, there is some truth in this, but a lot of additional factors complicate their work. Yes, and these researchers once or twice and miscalculated. If we make comparative assessments of these works, then the diversity of conclusions is striking. I am especially amazed how, on the basis of such a flimsy type of scientific data produced in, say, a separate region, they begin to draw global conclusions about the qualitative changes in nutrition in the whole country.

Recently, my favorite object of criticism, burst out with a post about the successes of the bloody Stalinist and Brezhnev regimes in increasing their anthropometric indicators, compared with the liberal Yeltsin and Putin, giving such a picture.

What I would like to say, in addition to the “history of one generation” by Urlanis, there are a lot of more famous and more recognized works. Even the most anthropometrists argue among themselves. Reading the correspondence between Mironov and Nefedov is like reading the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky. "Yes, I do not agree .. with both." The same result arises when reading the correspondence between Professor Ostrovsky and Mironov.

If there is no agreement in the opinion of such major figures on pre-revolutionary anthropometry. Even more so in later times, and it’s completely useless to wait for some conclusions at the present time. But even from their data it is clear that there were no significant improvements in anthropometric indicators under Stalin from 1928 to 1953, in contrast to the previous and subsequent periods. Data of Zenkevich and Almazova:

Dynamics of the average height of men (in cm).

There are also data from foreign researchers. "Reassessment of the standard of living in the Soviet Union": Elizabeth Brainerd. Reassessing the Standards of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data :

Here, too, the Brezhnev period raises big questions.

Another sore point of anthropometry is the period of evaluation of anthropometric data. During what period of life the level of well-being directly affects the growth of a person. When in the womb and the first two or three years of life during the period of rapid growth of the body in adolescence. That is, even measuring the average height of the current 18-year-old men, it is not clear in what period the level of well-being affected their growth. Of course, one can try to take the body weight and height of newborns as an indicator of rapidly reflecting the changes taking place in the economy.

But as follows from the article, the average body weight of newborns in Moscow in the world and civil wars, was above all (3500 grams) throughout the entire historical period. Does this indicator reflect the level of well-being of people. Unlikely. Whether the first two or three years of life or the period of rapid body growth in adolescence (12-16 years) serve as an indicator is a big question, and even if they do, what is their weight compared to the rest of the years of life. That is, what period up to 18 years is the main factor influencing these indicators. Of course, one cannot deny the fall of anthropometric indicators in the 90s, but it is wrong to continue their fall, like Burkina Faso, on the basis of some regional data for Samara. I’m silent about what is written in the same Samara work. With detailed statistical processing, there were no significant differences in the most significant indicators of the physical development of schoolchildren in the city of Samara over a 30-year period.

Even my anti-Putin online friend boasting with a strange drive that in the links of Google, when entering "Mironov anthropometry", there are more links to him than to Mironov himself. And then he admits that in the zero years, the rise of anthropometric indicators began. Which types are still behind the best Soviet ones. In general, under the tag "" he has many articles on this topic.

Of course, you can stupidly measure the growth of conscripts by compiling the necessary graphs, hoping that the period lived by the conscripts (18 years) was somehow reflected in their anthropometric indicators. But I didn’t find any special long time series. In addition to a small segment of 2001-2004. To which there are questions, why rather poor Dagestan lives better than Tyumen and Moscow? Namely, this is how these regional anthropometric indicators should be interpreted.

IMHO. Anthropometry is not a science after all. The contribution of different periods of childhood and adolescence to anthropometric indicators is unclear. The difficulty of measuring them in such a large country of contrasts as Russia. Of course, these studies deserve the status of scientific works such as Changes in the morphological status of men in the central regions of the RSFSR in the current century. But they cannot claim the ultimate truth. As for the international comparison of the height of Russian men, there is such a picture. It is impossible to check the scientific nature of the figure 1.75 and how it has changed recently. Can anyone justify the number 1.75, except that it is the most common.

What is the average height of a man and woman in Russia? In this article, I will not talk about the fact that the generation in modern Russia grew by 10 centimeters. Oh, yet I said it!!! The fact that in the USSR men and women were shorter is written in almost every article on the topic of the average height of men and women in Russia. In twenty years, the average height of a man and a woman will change again. The generation is growing up.

What is the average height of a man in Russia?

There are three assumptions about the average height of a man in Russia. These are 174 centimeters, 176 centimeters and the tallest man is 178 centimeters. And this is precisely in Russia. For the most part, the average height of a man in Russia is 176 centimeters. Like it or not, no one knows.

What is the average height of a woman in Russia?

The average height of a woman in Russia was also divided into three assumptions: 162 centimeters, 165 centimeters and, of course, 166 centimeters. Again, it is simply impossible to know the exact average height of a woman in Russia. There are various assumptions that are based more on theory than on facts.

There is a table of the average height of a man and a woman in general, where the average height of a man is from 174 centimeters, and the average height of a woman is 163 centimeters. Also in this table you can see the average height of a man and a woman in the world. Men - 176 centimeters, women - 164 centimeters.

It should be remembered that a person's height changes during the day from larger to smaller. After you wake up - your height is 1.5-2 centimeters higher. By the evening it decreases. It has to do with the spine. After you get a good night's sleep, your spine is slightly longer due to the greater distance between the spinal discs. Many people are not aware of this fact.

My height in the morning is 176.3 centimeters. By evening - 174.1 centimeters. That is, according to some reports, I am either of average height or below average. And if we take as a basis the average height of a man of 178 centimeters, then I will always be below average.

To be honest, my height does not suit me very much. At the age of 17, I was 173 cm, then I became 174.5, and on this my growth in height stopped. At the age of 17, I began to complex about this. I even did exercises for growth, but they did not give any effect. By the way, I wrote an article: where I wrote that NO.

Well, now let's look at the average growth in other countries. The Dutch (Netherlands) are the tallest in the world, while the Pygmies (Congo) are the shortest.

Now you know the average height of a man and woman in Russia and other countries. Someone has complexes because of short growth, like me, and someone because of high growth. It is impossible to reduce growth, but you can increase it if you do it on time. Growth zones should be open. At the age of 17, I took an x-ray of the left hand, and from the picture I realized that the growth zones were closed, and this was already at the age of 17.

Several of my comrades grew up at 18. For example, one of my comrades was 163 cm at the age of 17. He was wildly complex about this. His sisters comforted him, as they themselves are tall. One is 176 cm, the other is 178 cm. This means that it should be even higher. In addition to his short stature, he was also skinny. Because of this, he was not taken into the army, because he did not pass by weight. Between 18 and 19 years old, he stretched out to 188 cm. And it was sharp.

Three classmates also outgrew me. More precisely, two of them. One moved to us in the 10th grade from another school. He was about 178 cm tall. After the summer, when we all entered the 11th grade, I was surprised when I saw him. His height was 185 cm.

The other classmate was always the shortest. I was head and shoulders above him. At 17, we were almost the same height. After 5 years, I stumbled upon him in the mall, where he worked as a salesman. So, his height was not less than 178 cm. Now he looked down at me.

Well, another classmate went to the cadet school after the 9th grade. Sometimes he came to our school, where I periodically noticed that he was catching up with me in height. Now he not only became taller, but also fat as a pig.

At the age of 17, I wanted to use growth hormone, but alas, I did not get it. Now I am 26 years old and the growth zones are definitely closed, but since the end of 25 years I have started using growth hormone for bodybuilding. Oh yes, athletes use it to gain muscle mass. In September-October 2015, I injected growth hormone - Ansomon, 4 units per day. Later I learned that from Ansomon, 42% develop antibodies to the hormone. That is, in the third week he does not work.

Now I inject Jintropin - the original and is considered the best growth hormone. I take 10 units a day. I, if you are 16 years old, then you can grow with the help of growth hormone.

average height of a man in Russia, average height of a woman in Russia