Thaindian News

London, April 28 (ANI): Scientists have found that the height of the average man has increased by four inches in the last century due to improvements in diet and public health.

In 1900, a typical male was 5ft 6in tall, but by 2000 that had gone up to 5ft 10in. Over the same time women have grown by one-and-a-half inches, from just under 5ft 3in to just over 5ft 4in, according to their data.

The figures were revealed as part of once of the most comprehensive reviews of mankind’s development ever undertaken.

Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist Robert Fogel and his colleagues put the growth spurt mostly down to pregnant mothers eating better food which meant their babies grew up to be stronger and healthier.

Better sanitation and improvements in technology has also played a part by rescuing mankind from endless illness, malnutrition and brutal working conditions.

Fogel’s team spent three decades pulling together statistics to show how we have changed since 1700.

They found that it is not just longevity where mankind has seen huge improvements - we are getting taller too.

“In most if not quite all parts of the world, the size, shape and longevity of the human body have changed more substantially, and much more rapidly, during the past three centuries than over many previous millennia,” the Daily Mail quoted Fogel as saying.

He added that the change has come about in a time “minutely short by the standards of Darwinian evolution”. (ANI)