China's rapid economic growth has led to a marked improvement in the quality of life, and thus has coincided with the rise of Chinese teenagers.
According to a study that analyzed the movement of height and body mass index among schoolchildren, young Chinese have become significantly taller in the last 35 years, Telegraph reports.
The average height of 19-year-old Chinese women in 1985 was about 158, and 19-year-olds about 168 centimeters.
In 2019, their average height was 165 cm for girls and 177 cm for boys, which meant that their teenagers had one of the highest growth rates in the world.
During the study, researchers observed the physical development of children in 193 countries, focusing on height and body mass index. The average difference between the heights of the shortest and tallest 19-year-olds is estimated to be 20 centimeters. The countries with the highest teenage populations are the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia and Denmark. But the young Croats are also close to them.
Experts believe that while genetic variation contributes to some of the variation in height at the population level, diet and environment play an even bigger role. Namely, it has been observed that the height of the descendants of migrants after several generations usually approaches the average height of young people in the country where they now live.
Furthermore, although developing economies, including China and South Korea, have seen the greatest growth in adolescent height, in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, child height has stagnated or even declined, writes the Inkstone portal. News.
More and more obese children
Due to increased access to candy stores and fast food restaurants, the most developed regions of the world are registering an increase in childhood or adolescent obesity, according to a 2014 study by the World Health Organization.
The current study compared global changes in body mass index (BMI) in children and adolescents to analyze trends over the past 34 years in more detail.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is one of the ways to assess nutrition and can indicate the level of excess fat in the human body. The calculation of BMI is based on the ratio of a person's body weight and height. /Telegraph/
