Growth as a Mirror of the Condition of Society: Secular Trends and Class Distinctions

A study of the history of growth (Tanner 1981) shows that there have been three principal reasons or impulses for undertaking growth studies. First, the pure impulse of curiosity. the desire to discover the way in which a child grows, t o formulate a law describing human growth, enshrined in an ideal Human Growth Curve. Second, the more socially-oriented impulse, the impulse above all of the men and women who would reform and improve society; growth of children. as I shall show you, is a wonderfully good gauge of living conditions and the relative prosperity of different groups in a population. And third, there is the clinical impluse, the desire to monitor the growth not of populations of children but of a particular child, to ensure that it develops in the best possible way. The very first longitudinal study of growth was made out of pure curiosity. It was at the time of what we call the French Enlightenment, a period in the second half of the 18th century when education, and particularly education in science, swept away centuries-old superstitions and prejudices, and rational