570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
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‘Nutrition influences height’ has been a common concept for the last decades. Recently, contradictory results occurred when studying the effectiveness of nutritional interventions, questioning the interaction of nutrition and height. Therefore, we hypothesize that, independently of population/country, nutrition does not affect height in children and adolescents. We analyzed data from the study “Young Lives” which was performed in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam to describe the health situation of children. We used linear mixed effect models to analyze the influence of nutrition on height. Furthermore, we used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test if the commonly assumed hypothetical interaction of height and nutrition can be supported by data from low and middle-income countries. Estimates for nutrition on height of linear mixed effect models were about zero and randomly significant or non-significant in all analyzed countries. Furthermore, SEM led to the rejection of the ‘nutrition influences height’-hypothesis, as data did not support the models based on this hypothesis. We do not find evidence for a nutritional influence on height in children and adolescents from low and middle-income countries. The widespread assumption that inadequate diet is reflected in short stature, which all modern nutritional interventions are based on, needs to be critically reviewed.
Common knowledge suggests that growth in height is influenced by nutrition, genetics, health, and environmental and general living conditions. In addition, modern studies showed that also social mobility and dominance within the social group, may significantly affect adolescent growth and final height. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of popular ideas and beliefs about factors influencing the growth on the biology of child and adolescent growth. We hypothesized that these beliefs are culture-specific and age-dependent. We investigated 307 French and 315 German participants of all age-groups. We collected polarising statements by questionnaire that the participants had to agree or disagree on. French participants see a connection between nutrition and the body height of children. This is different in Germany and may be due to the fact that French food culture is more traditional. Genetic factors were generally overestimated and considered as the most important determinants of longitudinal-growth. The participants denied an influence of disease and social status. Participants over 35 years of age considered adult height to be independent of environmental factors. In conclusion, popular beliefs partly depend on culture and appear to change with age as a result of growing experience.