Why Americans' Potential Height Increase Have Reduced
Significantly
There was a time when most American children were expected to
grow taller than their parents. Since the early 20th century,
children and adolescents grew about an inch and a half taller
every 20 years. But recent height measurements suggest that the
average height of Americans has reached a plateau.
Data collected showed that the average height for Americans has
stabilized in the past 50 years to about 5 feet 9 inches for men
and 5 feet 4 inches for women. The reason is that most Americans
now face few nutritional or health-related stresses in their
youth. People experience the most height increase as infants and
then as adolescents. Most Americans have avoided disease and
eaten enough meat and milk in their youth to grow taller and
reach their genetic height potentials.
While overall U.S. height averages have more or less stabilized,
there are small pockets of the population where slight increases
in height are likely still happening. Studies dating from the
1930s have demonstrated how a person's environment and nutrition
can directly affect a person's height, size and dimensions.
Overwhelmingly, the children who had received adequate
supplements in their youth grew taller and were even more
successful throughout life. That