Darwin on Steroids
September 30th, 2007
Updated: There’s little doubt that the human body has changed markedly over the past century. One glance at movie photographs of 50 years ago shows how human physiology has evolved in the last half century. We’re compressing evolution. You might call this phenomenon “Darwin on Steroids.”
Although one could argue that the physical attributes of movie stars merely mirror the changing attitudes of casting agents, a casual observation of teens attending your nearest high school will confirm that major changes are under way.
The first thing you’ll notice is that high school kids today are much taller. In March 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that men and women alike had added an inch in height since 1960 — with the average American woman now standing 5-foot-4 and the average male hitting 5-foot-9-1/2.
That’s as puny as it sounds: the U.S. is coming up short in the height deparment. America used to be the tallest country in the world. But as Reuters reported in July, the average American’s height reached a plateau after World War II, and is gradually falling behind the rest of the world as it continues to grow taller.
By the time Baby Boomers reached adulthood in the 60s, most northern and western European countries had caught up or surpassed the U.S. Today, young adults in Japan and other prosperous Asian countries now stand nearly as tall as Americans do.
There are other changes too. Americans are far more overweight than just 25 years ago. In 1980, 46% of U.S. adults were overweight, compared to 65% today. And a third of U.S. adults are now obese, compared with 23% in 1994.
The acceleration of change: The human body is morphing rapidly, growing taller and more overweight in some instances. Changes are most evident when comparing old portraits to new.
What you’re witnessing is an acceleration of evolution. The human body is quickly adapting to changes in lifestyle, diets and perhaps even metaphysical attitudes. Although Americans are as active today as they were in 1970, according to a 2003 Harvard University study, they’re eating 200 calories more per day than they did just 10 years ago, which can add 20 pounds a year.
While the U.S. grew horizontally, the rest of the world reached for greater heights instead. In Holland, the tallest country in the world, the typical man now measures 6 feet (1.80m), a good two inches more than the average American. Even residents of formerly communist East Germany are taller than Americans today.
In 1850 the opposite was true: western Europeans were 2-1/2 inches (6cm) shorter than their American brethren. Evolutionary changes are not just limited to height. Japanese women are becoming curvier and taller as their diet, influenced by Western standards, increasingly includes more red meat and dairy products.
Why is this important? The reason is simple: taller people make more money. Studies have shown that an extra inch (2.5cm) of height can be worth about $1,000 extra a year in wages, after accounting for education and experience. If you’re 6 feet tall (1.80m), you likely earn about $6,000 more than an equally qualified 5-foot-6-inch person (1.70m).
According to a BusinessWeek article published in November 2005, ongoing surveys of more than 17,000 people in Britain and 12,000 in the U.S. conducted by Daniel Silverman, an assistant economics professor at the University of Michigan, found that even short teenagers who grow into normal-size adults are doomed to earn up to 13% less in the workplace than people who were tall as teens. This “height premium,” Silverman says, is comparable to wage gaps caused by gender and race.
On May 7, 2007, The Wall Street Journal noted that the average Japanese woman’s hips, at 35 inches (89cm), are an inch wider than those of women a generation ago. And women in their 20s wear bras at least two sizes larger than their mothers, says Wacoal, Japan’s largest lingerie company.
In the past 20 years, the shoe size of the average American woman has grown a full size to an 8 or 9, up from a 7 or 8. More than one-third of women now wear a size 9 or larger, up from 11% in 1987, The NPD Group reported in July 2004.
A shift in lifestyle lead to a big jump in childhood obesity, which has reached 20%. Although the caloric intake of young adults and teenagers has risen only 1% in the past two decades, physical activity has declined 13%, an analysis of federal statistics by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill found in February 2005.
Since 1995, Harris Interactive has asked adults to name their two or three favorite leisure-time activities. Eight years ago, 38% of replies involved activities requiring exercise, including fishing, gardening, playing sports, swimming, walking, hunting, bicycling, hiking, running or dancing. Now only 29% of replies involve exercise.
According to a multi-country study, U.S. teens were more likely to eat fast food and snacks, drink sugary sodas, and most likely to be driven to school and other activities, contributing to a more sedentary lifestyle, reports the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau. In fact, fast-food consumption increased fivefold among children since 1970, says a January 2004 Children’s Hospital Boston study.
Japanese lingerie maker, Wacaol, pictured above, reports that Japanese women’s bust sizes are increasing. They’re not alone. Since the 1920s, British women’s busts have grown four inches (10cm), going from a B cup to a C.
At the September 2002 Leicester science festival, Professor Andrew Prentice, a nutrition expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, remarked that people are now undergoing changes similar to those occurring two centuries ago, when Europeans shot up in height by 12 inches (30cm) or more. “I’m talking about the remarkable change that has occurred in man’s evolution in just the twinkling of an eyelid,” the BBC quoted Prentice as saying.
Although most of the baseball-loving world could care less that Barry Bonds took steroids, there’s no question that in less than 20 years, Bonds morphed from a 185-pound (84kg) Pittsburgh Pirate to a hulking, 230-pound (104kg) Giants outfielder, who, suddenly at age 37, hit a record-setting 73 home runs.
Although Bonds claims he’s not on steroids, Darwin clearly is.
Ubertrend: Time Compression
Value Propellants: Survival, Speed, Beauty, Gluttony
Entry Filed under: Lifestyle
12 Comments Add your own
1. Tony Freixas | August 20th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
In the Darwinian sense, evolution exists only when genetic change is involved. The word has “evolved” so that now it is synonymous with “change” or “change for the better”. These uses have nothing to do with biological evolution. Nor does this article.2. admin | August 20th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Tony, are you sure about that? If a giraffe got a longer neck through 5,000 years of straining, that’s evolution, but people gaining 12 inches in a 100 years is not? Help me understand. Michael3. Tony Freixas | September 26th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Not sure if you’ll see this, Mr. admin. But I just bumped into this article again and I’ll try to answer your question. Evolution, as I understand it, requires both 1) genetic mutation and 2) natural selection. Let’s consider giraffes. A lucky giraffe gets a mutated gene that doesn’t kill it (the usual outcome) but which gives it a slightly longer neck. It is lucky enough to survive and pass the gene on to its children who in turn pass it along to theirs. The population of giraffes with this gene happen to survive better than those without because of their ability to reach a food source not available to the others. To claim that people gaining 12 inches in 100 years is an evolutionary event assumes that a random mutation occurred which conferred a height advantage and managed to get spread to an enormous population in just 100 years. Quite a breeding program! What I think is happening is the interaction of existing genes with a changing environment—e.g. better nutrition. That’s just speculation; it might be some other environmental factor altogether. Another confusion that people have is not understanding the diversity of the gene pool. This is what allows someone to take a mutt and through selective breeding locate genes *already in the gene pool * to create the wide variety of dogs we see today. This can occur without a single new gene mutation. Hope this is clearer.4. admin | September 30th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Tony, I’ve added a really good reason why we have to get taller to survive: taller people make more money. The same goes for multitasking, which I will address separately. I’ve added links to the entire story to support my observations.5. Muse | September 30th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Amanda Wynne, of the British Dietetic Association, said: “Many things will influence height - including genetics - but nutrition is an important factor”. The fact That the Dutch invest in good pre and post natal care and better nutrition has perhaps been instrumental in them bagging the tallest award, Here’s another supporting url http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3625031.stm for how the human body responds to food and lifestyle changes, in this case in the vertical charts at least. Perhaps it’s the growth hormones found in mom’s milk. That’s what I call steroids in its purest form.6. Michael Tchong | September 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Thanks for that link and the additional perspecitve, Amanda! :-)7. Muse | September 30th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I know it’s a cool caption but I have never subscribed to Darwin’s theory of evolution. To say that we evolved from simplistic forms over time is an insult to the human intelligence. Have we evolved? I think nobody disputes micro evolution. It is univerally agreed that wolves, coyotes, foxes and the variety of domestic dogs came from the original pair of dogs. We have variations within a kind. The same goes for the human genome.That upward evolution from simplicity to complexity as propagated by Darwin’s Theory of evolution embraces natural selection as the driving mechanism of change . Organisms change into a totally different form of life over time to best an enviromental change. However, we have seen that every scientific mutation has resulted in a handicap or death. We’ve not becaome humans with wings or developed forked tongues! So much for X-men.Instead we have improved on our current gene pool through health, wellness and medicine. So much so that we are faster, better and more efficient. We’ve not added genes, we’ve improved on what we have. So yes we have micro evolved but not out of our set of genes.We’ve enhanced what we have and perhaps the only thing I will evolved into is an efficient humanoid. Time to heck into your fountain of youth and blog that to death.:-)8. king larry | October 3rd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
maybe the big breasted woman are more likely to reproduce because they are more seen as more attractive these days and therefore more likely to find a mate. survival of the fittest.9. Wole | October 3rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
“Taller people make more money” - How quantified is that statement? And can one necessarily presume that it is an accurate summary? Whilst the article you quoted suggests that height might be good for teenage self-esteem, it also concludes that there are many other factors of well-being that account for success in tall people (surprise surprise!) Chances are that healthier (not taller) people make more money. These would also be well-fed people with reasonable access to good healthcare, a consequence of which would be the opportunity for full physical, emotional and intellectual growth, enabling the ability to be economically successful. Your article is clearly not about evolution, it is about social change. You have already in most cases identified the lifestyle changes that are responsible for the physical modifications we are seeing.10. Ubercool » Marion J&hellip | October 5th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
[…] Darwin on Steroids […]11. Borkowski Blogs » S&hellip | October 10th, 2007 at 8:19 am
[…] Tchong has written an interesting paper on his site Darwin on Steroids: his claim is that while 75% of Americans object to steroid use, Marion Jones is part of […]12. www.cellulitediary.info &&hellip | October 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 am
[…] Michael Tchong put an intriguing blog post on Darwin on Steroids.Here’s a quick excerpt:Although most of the baseball-loving world could care less that Barry Bonds took steroids, there’s no question that in less than 20 years, Bonds morphed from a 185-pound (84kg) Pittsburgh Pirate to a hulking, 230-pound (104kg) Giants … […]Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed