Are Black Women Getting Smaller?

Dec. 30, 2008 — -- An economist in Germany has noticed a curious trend among Americans: For the past 50 years, black women have been shrinking with each new generation.

Young black women today are nearly an inch shorter than white women their age and about half an inch shorter than black women born in the late 60s, according to an analysis of CDC data by John Komlos, a professor of economics at the University of Munich in Germany.

Heights by gender, class and race in Komlos' study rise and drop in waves over the years, but on the whole, every other group besides black women has remained the same height or gotten taller than their parents since the 60s.

Public health experts can't say exactly what's behind the reduced height, but medical anthropologists, economists and epidemiologists agree that whatever the cause is, it's important.

"A measure of height takes into a number of aspects that money alone doesn't measure," Komlos said. "It's sort of an overall indicator of well-being."

"Height basically tracks your health ... it's all a big combination. It's everything," said Sharon Williams, a biological anthropologist and assistant professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Genes play a big role, but nutrition, activity and the number of illnesses can all influence a person's final height. A malnourished child will have stunted growth, but higher body fat in girls leads to earlier puberty, which draws the time for a child to grow taller to a close.

"Add on top of that, psychological health and psychosocial health," Williams said.

The psychological impact can take time to build. First, a person may become stressed for a period of time, which biologically weakens their immune system. The person may then catch more colds and illnesses, and over a period of a childhood and adolescence, their bodies spend more time fighting disease than growing.

"Height is a really good indicator that anthropologists and social scientists and also the medical community use," Williams said.