Socially, economically, politically and emotionally (SEPE) disadvantaged children are shorter than children from affluent background. In view of previous work on the lack of association between nutrition and child growth, we performed a study in urban schoolchildren. We measured 723 children (5.83 to 13.83 years); Kupang, Indonesia; three schools with different social background. We investigated anthropometric data, clinical signs of malnutrition, physical fitness, parental education, and household equipment. Subjective self-confidence was assessed by the MacArthur test. The prevalence of stunting was between 8.5% and 46.8%. Clinical signs of under- or malnutrition were absent even in the most underprivileged children. There was no delay in tooth eruption. Underprivileged children are physically fitter than the wealthy. The correlation between height and state of nutrition (BMI_SDS, skinfold_SDS, MUAC_SDS) ranged between r = 0.69 (p < 0.01) and r = 0.43 (p < 0.01) in private school children, and between r = 0.07 (ns) and r = 0.32 (p < 0.01) in the underprivileged children. Maternal education interacted with height in affluent (r = 0.20, p < 0.01) and in underprivileged children (r = 0.20, p < 0.01). The shortness of SEPE disadvantaged children was not associated with anthropometric and clinical signs of malnutrition, nor with delay in physical development. Stunting is a complex phenomenon and may be considered a synonym of social disadvantage and poor parental education.

Objectives: Human body height differs within a wide range and has conventionally been associated with genetic, nutritional, and environmental conditions. In this study, we try to broaden this perspective and add the evolutionary aspect of height differences.Sample and Method: We revisited height from archeological data (10 000–1000 BC), and historical growth studies (1877–1913). We analyzed height, weight, and skinfold thickness of 1666 Indonesian schoolchildren from six representative rural and urban elementary schools in Bali and West Timor with a stunting prevalence of up to 50%.Results: Stature in the Holocene prehistory of the Near East and Europe varied with maxima for women usually ranging below 160 cm, and maxima for men between 165 and 170 cm. Stature never rose above 170 cm. European and white US‐American schoolchildren of the 19th and 20th century were generally short with average height ranging between −1.5 and −2.2 hSDS, yet in the absence of any evidence of chronic or recurrent undernutrition or frequent illness, poverty, or disadvantageous living conditions. The same is found in contemporary Indonesian schoolchildren.Conclusion: Stunting is frequently observed not only in the poor, but also in affluent and well‐nourished social strata last 10 000 years. Only in very recent history, and only in a few democratic, modern societies, stature has increased beyond the long‐lasting historic height average. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, and considering adaptive plasticity of and community effects on growth, competitive growth and strategic growth adjustments, stunting appears to be the natural condition of human height.

To scrutinize to what extent modern ideas about nutrition effects on growth are supported by historic observations in European populations. We reviewed 19^th and early 20^th century paediatric journals in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the third largest European library with an almost complete collection of the German medical literature. During a three-day visit, we inspected 15 bookshelf meters of literature not available in electronic format. Late 19^th and early 20^th century breastfed European infants and children, independent of social strata, grew far below World Health Organisation (WHO) standards and 15-30% of adequately-fed children would be classified as stunted by the WHO standards. Historic sources indicate that growth in height is largely independent of the extent and nature of the diet. Height catch-up after starvation was greater than catch-up reported in modern nutrition intervention studies, and allowed for unimpaired adult height. Historical studies are indispensable to understand why stunting does not equate with undernutrition and why modern diet interventions frequently fail to prevent stunting. Appropriateness and effect size of modern nutrition interventions on growth need revision.

We test the hypothesis that differences in social status between groups of people within a population may induce variation in insulin-like growth factor-1(IGF-1) levels and, by extension, growth in height. This is called the community effect in height hypothesis. The relationship between IGF-1, assessed via finger-prick dried blood spot, and elite level sport competition outcomes were analysed for a sample of 116 undergraduate men and women. There was a statistically significant difference between winners and losers of a competition. Winners, as a group, had higher average pre-game and post-game IGF-1 levels than losers. We proposed this type of difference as a proxy for social dominance. We found no evidence that winners increased in IGF-1 levels over losers or that members of the same team were more similar in IGF-1 levels than they were to players from other teams. These findings provide limited support toward the community effect in height hypothesis. The findings are discussed in relation to the action of the growth hormone/IGF-1 axis as a transducer of multiple bio-social influences into a coherent signal which allows the growing human to adjust and adapt to local ecological conditions.