Secular Changes in Mean Height of Children in Japan and South Korea-Suspension in Height Increases and BMI

Abstract

Japan and South Korea achieved marvelous economic progress after WWII. Food consumption increased in quantity and quality, with animal-sourced products conspicuously augmented. Children grew in height unprecedentedly. Japanese children, however, ceased to grow taller in the 1990s, while supply of animal protein was still increasing. Korean children kept growing taller to overtake their Japanese peers by 3 cm in the mid-2000s, but they also stopped to grow any taller afterwards, while animal products kept increasing vigorously toward the end of the 2010s. Children in Japan started to turn away from fruit in the mid-1970s, to eat in the 2000s less than 10% of fruit by the older generations. Children in Korea started to steer away from vegetables in the early 1990s, to eat less than 10% of vegetables eaten by the older generations in their 50s-60s in the mid-2010s. Consuming sufficient animal-sourced products with very little vegetables/fruit, children, particularly in South Korea have been increasing in BMS in the past two decades, with a sign of declining height. Keywords: Animal Protein; BMS; Japan; Teens; South Korea; Vegetables/Fruit