Secular changes in the final height of Greek girls are levelling off.

Abstract

Improvements in socioeconomic conditions in the 20th century resulted in earlier pubertal maturation in children and greater body height during childhood and adulthood (1).However, in some countries the positive secular changes that resulted in greater height, especially in the last decade of the 20th or in the early 21st century (2,3), have come to a halt. We previously reported a secular trend was still taking place in young men in Greece, but at a lower rate than the one recorded in the last quarter of the 20th century (4). The last study on the final height of Greek girls was performed in 2000-2001 and showed a positive secular change of 2.5cm (5) from the previous study performed about 20 years earlier (6). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.