What is the average growth in Russia in the past, present and future?

Many probably thought about the questionwhether our own parameters correspond to the so-called arithmetic mean, and what factors influence the fact that the metric indices of the body become larger or smaller. After all, it is enough to go on an excursion to the historical museum to make sure that a 16-year-old teenager will not fit into the chain-stitch of a knight of the times of Kievan Rus, and the women's shoe of those times will be a 12-year-old modern girl. Obviously, the average growth in Russia has changed over the centuries. What factors influence its increase or decrease?

First, you can not discountgenetic predisposition: there are high nations, and there are short. World records, that in the other way, are beaten by African tribes: Tutsis, Masai and Nilots “blow out” by 180-200 cm, while men from the Pygmy tribe reach only 150 cm in height. It is believed that the tallest men in Europe (188 cm!) Live in Holland. And the woman in 177 cm in the country of tulips and windmills will not be called "gild" at all. The average growth in Russia also depends on the genetic parameters of the titular people of one or another federal region.

За период своей непростой истории наша страна experienced splashes of “tallness” and periods of “shortening” of the nation. In this, not the last role was played by other nations, which, mixing with the indigenous population, influenced the height of the descendants. The Varyags lengthened the growth of the Rus, while the Tatar-Mongol invasion greatly shortened it. But not only the influx of new blood played a major role in this process. The average growth in Russia also depended on the overall welfare of the nation.

No wonder in Russian the word "healthy" issynonymous with "big." It has long been observed that a painful child does not grow tall. Malnutrition or poor nutrition in childhood is particularly affected by body length. Therefore, experts from WHO and consider the average growth in Russia as an indicator of the health and welfare of the people. The clear evidence of this is the study of the parameters under which a person could be employed in the army. In the era of Peter the Great, such a strap was 163 cm, under the rule of Catherine II, 160 cm. Then, in the 19th century, the population began to gain centimeters, but under Alexander II, it was shredded again.

And why go far:in the 50s of the twentieth century, people whose childhood fell on the hungry war years were stunted: factories mainly sewed clothes for women with a height of 150-160 cm. reached 168 cm, and women - 157 cm. In the 1980s, people generally talked about “acceleration”: almost all children were taller than their parents. When the restless 90s struck, the population growth curve began to decline again.

If the collapse of the Soviet Union ordinary manquietly reached the bar of 176 cm, and the woman - 164 cm, but now the statistics have changed somewhat. Men still hold their positions, while the average height of women in Russia has decreased by two centimeters. Scientists predict that children born after the world economic crisis struck (2007) will grow shorter than their older brothers and sisters, whose first ten years of life fell on a prosperous 2000s.