Are Black Women Getting Smaller?
Study Says Black Women Are Growing Up to Be Shorter, But Can't Explain Why
Height Difference Between Races
Williams has seen evidence of a height gap among black women in her own work, but Komlos' large analysis only left her with more questions than answers.
"It doesn't give us any of the really interesting information about why," said Williams, who noted it's a wide net to divide all of America, with so many different cultures and lifestyles, into two racial groups.
"This is a statistical study that really misses out on what's going on. ... It's what we do now, but it isn't the best thing," she said. "What's more interesting to me is what's going on in a small scale, in small communities."
Searching for answers about Americans' height can get even more complicated, depending on which study you choose.
A study released in October by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) compared heights of black women across 10-year age periods, instead of five, as Komlos does. That study didn't show a height difference across young adult and middle-aged black women.
"They look the same, the mean is identical," said Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist at NHANES in Washington, D.C.
According to Ogden, how frequently the government took surveys, how the government defined race, and which ages the government chose to include has changed periodically since the 1970s.
"So, I think it's very hard for me to give an easy answer about anything," Ogden said.
Such changes were precisely why Komlos said he compared and contrasted the NHANES numbers. He had noticed the beginnings of this trend in past research, and only found enough data to show a shrinking stature among black women in the October study.
"They (the CDC) collect millions of data on different kinds of information from blood pressure to whatever have you," Komlos said. "Height is not something that is of particular interest to them, it seems to me."
However, even Komlos thinks there is more research and analysis to be done to determine what the height disparity found in his study might mean.
For example, why the height decline, the study found, is mostly among the lower and middle income group.
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