Revision as of 15:39, 22 August 2016

Height

The Times of India, Aug 14, 2016

Subodh Varma

Indians growing taller, but fall short in world order

The average Indian is taller than his/her parents, but that's not saying much. Between 1914 and 2014, the average height of Indian men increased by about 3cm to reach 165cm (5'5") while women grew taller by 5cm to become 153cm (5'1"). This leaves our men about 17.5cm shorter than the world's tallest males in the Netherlands, while Latvian women, the world's tallest, tower above our women by 17cm. These findings emerge from a massive study of human height measurements involving 1,470 earlier studies covering over 18.6 million participants in 200 countries. The study was conducted by more than 800 researchers and led by scientists from Imperial College, London. Most countries have shown an increase in height over the past century, with Iranian men and South Korean women shooting up most-by 16.5cm and 20.2cm. But the once-tall Americans-placed third among men and fourth among women in 1914-slipped to 37th and 42nd place in 2014. Overall, the ten tallest nations in 2014 were dominated by European countries, and featured no English-speaking nation. Why have some nations shot up while others have not? Environmental factors are important in determining average heights of populations, James Bentham of Imperial College told.

"Factors such as good nutrition, clean water supply, avoidance of childhood infections, and a mother's health during pregnancy affect how much these children grow. We believe that the relatively small gains in height in India are likely to be due to some or all of these factors," he said. In India, the nutrition board under National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) measured the height of Indian rural men and women at regular intervals between 1975-79 and 2011-12. There was a marginal increase of 1.2cm among men and only 1cm among women, study co-author Dr A Laxmaiah of NIN told TOI. The heights of earlier years were estimated from these records.

Although low height gains in India reflect poor nutritional levels and high disease prevalence, children today are much taller than their parents were at the same age. This has been revealed in studies by Harshpal Singh Sachdev, senior pediatrician at Sitaram Bhartia Institute, comparing children with their parents. "Our data shows that children aged between 5 and 13 years are on average 5.5cm to 7.5cm taller than their parents at the same age 30 years ago. Obviously, they are still in a growing phase and the difference will increase. These changes are comparable to or greater than those seen in developed countries at a similar stage of socio-economic development about 50 years ago," he said.

How much role does heredity play? Sachdev says that there are 200 genes associated with height but their net contribution in determining adult height is about 10%. "Though genetic factors play an important role in determining height at individual level, environmental factors such as income, age-specific balanced diet, sanitation, health facilities may exploit genetic potential," said Laxmaiah. Confirming this, Bentham said that if all populations across the world lived in the same environment, it's likely there would be some differences in mean height between certain populations, but we would not see the 20-23cm gap between the tallest and shortest countries witnessed at present.

Height in adulthood for the 1896 and 1996 birth cohorts for men

Height in adulthood for the 1896 and 1996 birth cohorts for women

What is a cohort?

A cohort

is a group of people with a shared characteristic; and

is a group of people used in a study who have something (such as age or social class) in common.

Acknowledgement

The information about Height in this section has been taken from the article

A century of trends in adult human height: NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) Published: July 26, 2016. Study author– Prof Majid Ezzati. Other authors: James Bentham et al, mostly of the Imperial College London, United Kingdom.

Cite as eLife 2016;5:e13410

The entire article can be read at E Life Sciences, from which the two tables given above have been extracted manually. Omissions, if any, may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

Penis size

Daily Mirror’s report…

Zahra Mulroy, Daily Mirror, UK, 19 Aug 2016

The world 'penis size' map has been invented and it shows how the average manhood measures up

It's often said size doesn't matter, but it clearly did enough for someone to make this interactive map

And in case you lie awake at night, tormenting yourself wondering about global penis sizes, then rest easy. Someone has come up with a map of the world with such a twist.

Target Map World map shows how your manhood measures up compared to other countries

Yes, Target Map "have created the colour-coded graphic which shows the different sizes of men’s manhood depending on where they’re from" reports the Sun.

The best bit? It's interactive. Meaning you can swoop in, compare sizes and judge to your heart's content.

So how do the world's (approx) 3,400,000,000 adult males measure up against one another?

Well, the competition is stiff.

[Mirror's Nicola Oakley asked] Why do classical statues of men always have small penises? There's an interesting explanation [Indpaedia’s explanation: Because classical statues show flaccid and not erect penises, because it would be indecorous to show erect penises and because at 12.18 cm/ 4.8 in. and 12.5cm / 4.9 in. respectively the Greeks and Romans are not very big guys anyway.]

African, South American and Caribbean nations dominate the top ten with the men down under in Australia not far behind.

As with all things comparative sadly, someone has to come last and that's taken by Thailand, Singapore and North Korea.

Bottom 10 countries

Average erect penis size in inches

Thailand 3.7

Nepal 3.7

North Korea 3.8

Cambodia 4

Sri Lanka 4.3

South Korea 4.3

Pakistan 4.4

Hong Kong 4.4

Bangladesh 4.4

Singapore 4.5

… was cited incorrectly in India

…leading to nationwide glumness.

Therefore, Indpaedia first checked Daily Mirror’s report in the original and found that either an Indian newspaper had cited it incorrectly OR the Mirror website had subsequently corrected its earlier report.

Therefore, Indpaedia went to the original source, Target Map, itself, and painstakingly compiled the table below, so that all Indians, Afghans and other South Asians can stand erect in the comity of nations and the Nepalese, Pakistanis and other South Asians are reassured in the knowledge that what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.

Indpaedia readers are encouraged to visit these two sites, and additional information gained from them may please be sent as messages (not Timeline posts) to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

The actual South Asian rankings