Temporary and lasting effects of childhood deprivation on male stature. Late adolescent stature and catch-up growth in Woerden (The Netherlands) in the first half of the nineteenth century

Abstract

This paper compares the statures of men during late adolescence, measured at age 19, with the stature in adulthood, measured at age 25, specially focusing on the influences of household situation and family stress. On average, the men studied became five centimeters taller in the interval, but there was a large individual variation as the shortest men realized the largest 'catch-up' growth. We study how childhood deprivation impacted on growth in adolescence. Childhood deprivation was measured, apart from socioeconomic status and social cultural characteristics of the household, through family size, number of siblings, mortality clustering in the family, and certain characteristics of the mother. In particular, we are interested in the question whether these early-life experiences had a lasting effect, in other words to what extent they were still visible at age 25 and to what extent they influenced the potential for catch-up growth. Our results indicate that the independent influence of family composition was very weak. When comparing temporary and lasting effects on male stature, we see that in general the influences of socioeconomic status and sociocultural factors were, although weaker, still visible at age 25. The results also make clear, that the height at the age of 19 is a better, more sensitive, indicator for the circumstances in which a child grew up. The results of this exercise should be interpreted with caution, as they are based on a small number of cases.