Comparative Analyses of Height Growth Velocities of School Boys in South Korea and Japan in the Past 50 Years

The paper compares the height growth velocities of male schoolchildren in South Korea and Japan over the period 1961-2018. Growth in height was measured with the same birth cohorts, not by comparing mean height of ascending ages in the same year. Starting from a lower economic base and mean height in the 1960s, high school males aged 17 in South Korea became 3 cm taller in mean height than their Japanese peers in the mid-2000s versus 2 - 3 cm shorter in the 1960s through 1970s. Children in Japan ceased to grow taller by the end of the 1980s, not because they quit taking more animal-sourced foods, meat and milk, but because they had drastically steered away from fruit and vegetables in their diets since the end of the 1970s. Having largely converged economically with Japan, South Korean children ceased to grow any taller in the mid-2000s. More importantly, it was discovered in this study that successive cohorts in South Korea started to fall gradually but steadily in height growth velocity from 1st graders in middle school, aged 12 years to 3rd graders in high school, and aged 17 years, to be once again 3 cm below their Japanese peers in the early-2010s. Analysis of Korea Household Expenditure Surveys classified by age groups of household head, decomposed by the author, revealed that children under 20 years of age in South Korea began to steer away from fruit and, particularly, vegetables in their at-home consumption in the mid-1990s, to average only 15% of the level of older adults in their 50s in the mid-2010s. These results lend supports to the importance of fruit and vegetables as determinants in height and its growth velocities in two genetically similar nations over time and stages of economic growth.

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书包杀人！香港一奇闻！一个学童斜靠在公寓阳台的栏杆上,书包滑下,重量达20磅的书包将学童拽下20层高的楼房,一命呜呼?记者一言,发人深省:Schoolchildren in many parts of Asia are swamped(本义:淹没;覆没)withhomework and have to lug(拖;拉)heavy bags。】

8-Year-Old Florida Boy Drives to School

八岁大的孩子能做些什么?倘若告诉你八岁小孩能在车水马龙的道路上驾车行驶,十有八九你会惊出一身冷汗!而佛罗里达州就有这么个小男孩,独自开车行驶1.5英里到学校上课。要不是他到处夸耀。恐怕无人会知晓这一“壮举”。他也为他的自鸣得意付出了代价——停课10天反省思过。