This article is the first to use individual‐level, longitudinal measures of child growth to document changes in the growth pattern in Britain between the 1850s and the 1970s. Based on a unique dataset gathered from the records of the training ship Indefatigable, this study analyses the mean heights of boys at admission and their longitudinal growth using regressions that control for observable characteristics. Our findings show a secular increase in boys’ mean height over time, and that height gain was most rapid during the interwar period. In addition, longitudinal growth velocity was low and similar at different ages for boys born before the 1910s, suggesting a substantially weaker pubertal growth spurt (three standard deviations lower) than that which occurs in modern populations. However, for boys born in the 1910s and later, higher growth velocities associated with pubertal growth appeared in a narrow range of ages (14 to 16 years). Thus, it appears that there was a substantial change in the growth pattern beginning in the 1910s with the emergence of a strong pubertal growth spurt. The timing of this shift implies that declines in child morbidity mattered more for the changing growth pattern than improvements in nutrition that occurred before 1910.

中文翻译：

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1850年至1975年英国儿童的成长模式†

本文是第一篇使用个人水平，纵向的儿童生长测度来记录1850年代至1970年代英国成长模式变化的文献。基于从训练舰的记录聚集了独特的数据集不倦，这项研究使用控制可观察特征的回归分析了男孩入院时的平均身高及其纵向生长。我们的发现表明，随着时间的推移，男孩的平均身高呈长期增长趋势，而在两次战争之间，身高增长最快。此外，在1910年代之前出生的男孩的纵向生长速度较低，并且在不同年龄段的生长速度相似，这表明青春期的生长突增要弱于现代人群（三个标准差低）。但是，对于1910年代及以后出生的男孩，与青春期生长相关的更高的生长速度出现在狭窄的年龄段（14至16岁）中。因此，从1910年代开始，随着青春期生长的突飞猛进，生长模式似乎发生了实质性的变化。