Black women in the U.S. appear to be shrinking

Chicago Tribune ^ | December 25, 2008 | Tom Hundley

[CE2949BB]

Call her The Incredible Shrinking African-American Woman.

In an age when the adult populations of most industrialized nations have grown significantly taller, the average height of black women in the U.S. has been receding, beginning with those born in the late 1960s.

The difference in stature between white women and black women has now stretched to three-quarters of an inch and appears to be increasing, according to newly released data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The main culprit appears to be diet.

[Mr. Mojo]

Black women in the U.S. appear to be shrinking

Not Oprah.

[the invisib1e hand]

***

They got a long way to go.

[SolidWood]

The reason this matters, according to Komlos, is because "height is a very good overall indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment."

Voting Democrat will shrink you! Now that's a slogan!

[the invisib1e hand]

The main culprit appears to be diet.

women and minorities hit hardest?

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

GMTA.

She’s growing....horizontally.....

[CE2949BB]

"height is a very good overall indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment."

Ah, crap!

[bert]

The width to height ratio is on the increase however.

[Dilbert San Diego]

The main culprit is diet? Are these people serious?

Nobody is going hungry in this country due to lack of gov’t and society efforts. There are food stamps and subisdies for hte poor, if they are hinting that blacks are disproportionately poor.

Do some people make poor food and nutritional choices? Yes. Is that the fault of society or government, or prove that we are racist somehow because a new generation of black females is shorter???????

[FlingWingFlyer]

Diet? I would have suspected George Bush or “globall warming” to be causing it.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Obesity in girls causes early puberty, which stops the bones from growing sooner than they would normally.

[maggief]

“Black females were hardest hit:”

[A knight without armor]

I’ve heard of height being associated with diet. I don’t know if it is true but I’ve read in many different sources that improved nutrition was the reason Europeans became taller. They say antique suits of armor are generally way to short to be worn by modern people there.

[Tax-chick]

High caloric intake from an unhealthy diet fuels an early growth spurt among black children, plus it speeds the onset of puberty, especially for black girls, who now begin menstruating 81/2 months ahead of white girls. This early onset of puberty reduces the duration of the critical pre-adolescent growth spurt, resulting in a lower adult height.

Tyg. Obesity + other cultural factors = earlier puberty = lower adult height.

This sort of analysis doesn't work anecdotally, of course. I'm 2" shorter than my mother, and my teenage daughter is 2-1/2" short than I am. On the other hand, my mother was 3" shorter than her older sister, whose daughter (my cousin) was 3" taller than her mother, and whose daughter is 3" taller than HER mother (6'1"). Partly it depends on whom you marry.

[TonyStark]

[CindyDawg]

jat but maybe they are marrying shorter men which would give their children a least a 50% chance of being short

[i_dont_chat]

THere have been a number of simply pitiful black women in congress as of late. Several have made spectacles of themselves and I think they have made themselves irrelevant.

[Popman]

Black females were hardest hit: Almost 80 percent of black females are overweight or obese, compared with 62 percent of the total female population, according to the CDC.

The problem develops early. Twenty-one percent of black females ages 2 to 19 are overweight or obese, compared with 12 percent of white girls.

Of course, the welfare state has NOTHING to do with

[blam]

"Several have made spectacles of themselves and I think they have made themselves irrelevant."

Proving themselves to be complete idiots.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

The left will use it as falsified evidence that we need to give them more power — just like feminists invented the lie that girls were being overlooked in school, got a bunch of programs passed/financed, had the curriculum and pedagogy significantly overhauled to shine more light on girls — all to find out after the fact that they'd invented the study and it was actually boys that were being overlooked (thus the lower grades, higher dropout rates, and lower college enrollment among boys).