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SECULAR GROWTH AND MATURATION CHANGES IN HUNGARY IN RELATION TO SOCIOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2015

Eva B. Bodzsar ,
Annamaria Zsakai  and
Nicholas Mascie-Taylor
Eva B. Bodzsar
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Anthropology, Eotvos Lorand University Budapest, Hungary
Annamaria Zsakai*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Anthropology, Eotvos Lorand University Budapest, Hungary
Nicholas Mascie-Taylor
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
*
1Corresponding author. Email: zsakaia@elte.hu
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Summary

This paper analyses the secular changes in the body development patterns of Hungarian children between the 1910s and the beginning of the 2000s in relation to socioeconomic and demographic changes in the country. Individual growth data of children were available from two national growth studies (1983–86, 2003–06), while sample-size weighted means of children’s body dimensions were collected through regional studies between the 1920s and 1970s. Gross domestic product, Gini index, life expectancy at birth and under-5 mortality rate were used to assess the changes in economic status, income inequalities of the society and the population’s general health status, respectively. Secular changes in food consumption habits were also examined. The positive Hungarian secular changes in socioeconomic status were associated with a continuous increase in children’s body dimensions. The negative socioeconomic changes reflected only in wartime and post-war periods of children’s growth, and the considerable socioeconomic changes at the beginning of the 1990s did not appear to influence the positive trend in children’s growth. The positive secular trend in stature and body mass did not level off at the beginning of the 2000s: the socioeconomic conditions that support optimal growth and maturation could improve in Hungary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 158 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2015 

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