https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8150-9823
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ABSTRACT
Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of severe economic shocks (such as those associated with wars) on the growth of children and adolescents. Individuals exposed to these shocks during their developmental years exhibited shorter average heights compared to both previous and subsequent generations. Anthropometric research has highlighted the sensitivity of the height variable in understanding the biological well-being of children and adolescents. However, little attention has been paid to the evolution of other anthropometric variables. This study investigates the impact of the famine following the Spanish Civil War on biological well-being in nine municipalities of the Region of Valencia (with over 120,000 observations of individuals born between 1890 and 1955) using two indicators: chest circumference, and the percentage of individuals of short stature. Our findings confirm that both of these anthropometric indicators were responsive to the economic shock of the Civil War. The well-being levels prior to the war took 20 years to recover.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19485565.2024.2310499
Notes
1 For Spain, this indicator has previously been used by Moreno-Lázaro and Martínez-Carrión (Citation2009) and Linares-Luján and Parejo-Moruno (Citation2016).
2 The conscripts were measured in all municipalities with homogeneous standardized tools and had to report accurate measurements (although there may be a certain tendency to rounding).
3 In Figure A.3 of the Appendix, we can observe the comparative evolution of the average height and average chest circumference in the conscripts of the sample.