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Did family size affect differences in body height in non-urbanized societies? Evidence from the Lemko community in Poland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2019

Zbigniew Czapla Open the ORCID record for Zbigniew Czapla [Opens in a new window] ,
Grażyna Liczbińska ,
Oskar Nowak  and
Janusz Piontek
Zbigniew Czapla*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Biological Development, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Grażyna Liczbińska
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Oskar Nowak
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Janusz Piontek
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: czapla@amu.edu.pl
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Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of economic changes in the Polish territories under Austrian partition at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries on the trend in adult body height, and to examine the effect of number of children in a family, as a socioeconomic factor, on the differences in heights of males and females. Data collected in a 1939 survey for a group of 350 Lemkos living in Polish lands under the Austrian partition were obtained from archive material. Individual data were obtained for body height and number of siblings, to calculate family size. Linear regression analysis confirmed an increase in body height in males by about 1.2 cm per decade over the period 1860 to 1922. The number of children in a family did not appear to influence the mean body height of men and women. The observed positive mean body height trend probably resulted from the improvement in the economic conditions in the Austrian sector over the survey period.

Keywords

Number of ChildrenTrend in Body HeightEconomic Development
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 51 , Issue 5 , September 2019 , pp. 669 - 682
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2019 

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