A question about human height and growth

[Sheilawisz]

Hey everyone.

I have recently finished my Joan of England trilogy, which means that now I am reading from the first novel and I have been editing little parts here and there as I read. There is something important that I want to change, and that is the height of Joan (the main character) and two of her friends.

Joan's height is mentioned as 5'1'', but I have considered for a long time that she should be taller. She is fifteen and a half years old when the story starts, and it is implied that she had not completed her growth yet because her mother is described as a clearly tall woman.

I think that Joan's mother is around 5'9''. Is it realistic that a 15-year old girl that is 5'1'' can grow to be 5'9'' tall or maybe 5'10''?

At what age do we really stop growing?

The option that I like the most right now is to give Joan's height as 5'4''. Then, she would not grow much until she is sixteen, which is the point when her biological aging gets frozen.

This change would affect her two best friends (described as being her same height) but not the rest of the characters in the series.

What do you think, would 5'4'' be good enough or maybe she should be taller?

 

[Asterisk]

According to Livestrong.com, "For girls, 64 inches, or 5 feet 4 inches tall, is considered a normal height." I am two years younger and am 60-62 inches tall. I think 5'4'' is perfect.

 

[Saigonnus]

Most females complete their growth around 18, and tend to grow slower than males do and most males continue growing until 25 (though it slows to a crawl after 16-17). Consider also the typical diet back in the medieval times, even for nobles. It wasn't nearly as nutritionally complete as our diet today, and went heavily toward grains/staples for most people. Such a diet tends to stunt growth without alot of protein. Look also at the construction of those old buildings, most have doorways barely 6 feet tall (if that), giving the idea that even the men tended to be shorter than that.

 

[Ireth]

Saigonnus is correct. Men and women alike were a lot shorter back in the medieval era; I think 5'2" was average for women, while men averaged 5'4" or so.

 

[Shockley]

I can't comment on the biological aspect, but I have some input as a historian:

Mary, Queen of Scots was considered freakishly tall for a woman for the early modern period (that is, 1485 on) and she was only six feet. Edward Longhshanks (Longshanks referencing his long limbs) was only 6'2 and Charles I, centuries after the close of the middle ages, was only 5'4.

 

[Jabrosky]

This may be only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but while it is true that human beings were shorter than today for most of recorded history, archaeological remains indicate that prehistoric human beings (i.e. Paleolithic foragers) were for the most part at least as tall as we are. Here's one study on European stature throughout the ages:

The ancestors of modern Europeans arrived in Europe at least 40,000 years before present. Pre-glacial maximum Upper Palaeolithic males (before 16,000 BC) were tall and slim (mean height 179 cm, estimated average body weight 67 kg), while the females were comparably small and robust (mean height 158 cm, estimated average body weight 54 kg). Late Upper Palaeolithic males (8000-6600 BC) were of medium stature and robusticity (mean height 166 cm, estimated average body weight 62 kg). Stature further decreased to below 165 cm with estimated average body weight of 64 kg in Neolithic males of the Linear Band Pottery Culture, and to 150 cm with estimated average body weight of 49 kg in Neolithic females. The body stature of European males remained within the range of 165 to 170 cm up to the end of the 19th century.

 

[Nihal]

I only stopped growing after I turned 22. The growing rate was slow however and I'm still short; I think I'm nearly 5'2" (I can't remember my height!).

 

[Shockley]

This may be only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but while it is true that human beings were shorter than today for most of recorded history, archaeological remains indicate that prehistoric human beings (i.e. Paleolithic foragers) were for the most part at least as tall as we are. Here's one study on European stature throughout the ages:

My major concern here is that it doesn't specify his sample size in the abstract, and I have no real way of accessing the full paper. Without the sample size, we can't really get a good idea of how accurate the average is.

That said, there are two things to take into consideration:

- The transition to settled, urban living had a bizarre effect on the human race. Average life expectancy dropped during that period, so it wouldn't surprise me if average health, size, etc. also declined as diets and lifestyles changed.

- Comparing the physical size of a paleolithic male to a medieval male, let alone a medieval girl, is going to cause a lot of problems because you are dealing with about seventeen thousand years of change within the species.

As much as I love science, I'm not sure it is as useful here due to the joint problem of sample size and people really not keeping records of average heights until the last century. A much better method is to look at the writing of the time and take note when the writer finds it necessary to note someone's height (ie, Mary, Queen of Scot's 'freakish' six foot frame).

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone, and thank you for all of this feedback!!

I have read that Medieval people were shorter than we are today because of a variety of reasons, and because of that, for some time I considered the idea that Joan should be shorter than 5'1''.

However, the Plantagenets were famous as very tall people. I am not sure about this, but I read that a suit of armor that belonged to John of Gaunt (one of Joan's brothers) proves that the man was 6'7'' tall. I guess that King Edward III must have been very tall too, so maybe his daughters were quite tall as well.

Queen Philippa was described as tall, without precise numbers. She was 5'9'' according to my story... Then, her daughters could have been the same height at least.

I am almost sure that my fifteen and a half/sixteen years old Joan should be 5'4''. I would really like to make her 5'8'', but maybe that would be too tall for a girl that age.

What do you think??

 

[Ireth]

I say go for it. I have a medieval vampire character who's 6'7", and his descendants are all very tall as well. His elder son is 6'3", the younger is 5'11". One of his descendants, and actually the hero of my vampire novel, is 6'1"; said hero's mother is 5'8". His father is closer to average, being 5'5". Even further down the line (going into modern times here), you have one woman who's fully grown at 6'2", with a little sister who's 5'9" at 13 years old.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I've been the same height and weight pretty much since 15 or 16. I'm 33. So I finished growing a long time ago...

 

[Caged Maiden]

that being said, my husband is 6'4" and he was 5'10" when he was 16 and hit a really big growth spurt late. SO whereas I grew pretty consistently and leveled off at 5'3" as a teenager, he was average height until his later teens and then shot up. People grow differently

 

[wordwalker]

Just keep in mind how big a difference even a little bigness makes. ))

A big part of most peoples' instincts is that "tall" is "anyone with eyes above mine." If Joan is as tall as many men, let alone most, she'll make an impression just from that, even before figuring all the other aspects of the story.

 

[Sheilawisz]

That's a good point, Maiden: We all grow differently, so maybe it's impossible to create a chart and say "this is exactly the growth rate for an average teenager".

That gives me more freedom to calculate my character's height and potential growth =)

I really want to go for it and make Joan 5'8'' tall, Ireth. The problem is that if she gets to be that tall, I would have to make changes in the height of some other characters as well. Queen Philippa is definitely taller than her by a good five or six inches, so I would have to make the Queen 6'1'' or 6'2'' and that would be excessive.

My formula is like this, and sorry but I have to go metric here: Queen Philippa is 176cm tall, and I have almost decided to make Joan a good 163cm tall (5'4''). This means that Joan's height is 92.6% of her mother's height... Again, a 173cm (5'8'') Joan would create a 187cm tall potential adult version of herself, which would be as tall as Maria Sharapova.

According to the same formula, a 15 years old 5'4'' Joan would be a little above 5'9'' as an adult and that seems fine to me.

Wordwalker: There are few important male characters in my trilogy, but definitely they all are considerably taller than Joan.

Any thoughts?

 

[Caged Maiden]

the vikings were considered tall for Europeans, mainly because of their diet. High in fish protein and dairy, their growht potential might not have been higher than the English, but they certainly reached a greater height because of their better nutrition. One of the reasons the peasants tend to be shorter was bad nutrition, mostly grain.

So, for example, when you look at Stone Age man and Medieval man, there were remarkable differences, based solely on their diets. Stone Age man, with his diet of fish and fresh meat and nuts and legumes, etc, had strong teeth, strong bones and was tall and lean. His hair was shiny and his body relatively healthy. (Discovered with the "ice man", found preserved very well in ice). Medieval man, who ate mostly grains and low grade meats, intermittently, was short and his skeleton wasn't as dense. Frequently there were deformations caused by nutritional deficiencies, maybe rickets (common) or blindness (from Vit A deficiency, lack of orange vegetables) or scurvy from no fresh fruit. His teeth were most often rotten and missing. Of course, health care was a factor, but to think they were more advanced in the Stone Age, can't be a hard and fast rule, but when a body starts out healthy and has good nutrition, it is more likely to sty as such.

Height is one of many facets of health influenced by nutrition. If you have more milk, you grow better as a child. Impoverished countries nowadays, are still plagues with childhood malnitrition because when a nursing mother gives birth, she nurses the new baby and gives her older child essentially the family supper, mashed up. For many children, they aren't able to fully digest the rough food and they suffer malnutrition because of it. So mothers are encouraged to nurse their children for two to three years in developing countries. Neanderthal women nursed their babies for five. Milk is the very best food for young children, because it's perfectly digestable and high in protein and the right kinds of fats for brain and eye development and intestinal health. I'd imagine a baby raised by nobility, would have had several wet nurses and therefore, if it wasn't deemed "unfashionable" would have been nursed as long as was healthy. However, we know from history, that noble women did not usually nurse their own children. They were expected to become pregnant again as soon as possible and produce more inheriting heirs. SO hope that helps a little.

 

[Caged Maiden]

An amendment to my last post. When bleached flour became popular, it was only the nobility that could afford it and so at that time, the peasants (with their barley and rye) actually were getting more nutrition from their grains. However, it was access to fresh meat and fish and dairy that most influenced their growth, not grain.

The diseases of which I spoke, are mostly eradicated in developed countries, but rickets is making a comeback, mostly because people are now wearing sun screen all the time, which blocks our bodies from producing Vit D. European peasants worked outside and absorbed enough sunlight in the summer months to store Vit D for use throughout the winter. The nobility did not have much sun exposure. Babies were probably done a great service by their noble mothers, who wouldn't have been giving them any Vit D, as breast milk only contains Vit D if the mother has an ample supply, in excess of what her own body needs. SO like, if the mother has half the requirement, her milk will not also contain low-ish levels, it will contain NONE. It was probably better noble babies were nursed by common women, even if the people didn't know there was a medical benefit and instead made the choice for other reasons.

The disease that affects young children in developing countries is called "kwashiorkor" I'm not sure if I spelled it right, but it's a protein deficiency because the growing children (about age 3) still need high protein but they are switched to a plant-based diet high in fiber but low in protein when their mothers wean them.

 

[Shockley]

the vikings were considered tall for Europeans, mainly because of their diet. High in fish protein and dairy, their growht potential might not have been higher than the English, but they certainly reached a greater height because of their better nutrition. One of the reasons the peasants tend to be shorter was bad nutrition, mostly grain.

It's that conception that makes me want to argue that Europeans of this time would have been substantially smaller today. Based on archaeological studies (basically, a lot of grave digging), we currently estimate the average height of a Scandinavian male in the 9th through 11th centuries was about 5'7.

 

[Caged Maiden]

that's true. They weren't the 6' 6" blond towers of raw muscle they're portrayed as. However, based on diet alone (and plenty of archaeology), we can see how people of different regions benefited from the natural resources of their circumstances. Imagine how most Africans are smallish, thin and wiry. Well, in America, with the best resources and nutrition available, we see very different body types from African Americans. Same genes, very different results.

We did an experiment in school. We fed a rat sugar water and another rat milk. Corky grew to be 150% as big as Soccer, based solely on the milk he was fed. So there you have it, people. Milk makes a big difference. Northern Europeans tend to be the only people in the world who are not lactose intolerant as adults. They're the only ones who've developed the natural ability to drink milk past childhood and early adulthood. It stands to reason that if milk is a large part of the diet (only available to common people in wealthy societies or some nomadic ones), a person's growth potential is raised slightly.

That's what we're debating here, isn't it? Growth potential and circumstances which either allow a person to reach it or inhibit them from reaching it. Malnutrition is a biggie. The biggest. And for many years, most of Europe was malnourished.

In fact, in the two decades leading up to the Black Death in (don't quote me) 1348, loads of people starved to death. First, drought and floods ruined several crops. Then, cattle died in huge numbers due to anthrax. The cordwainers' guilds went mad, unable to obtain leather. Then when the Black Death hit, so many were already weakened, that it took an even heavier toll than it might have, if people were in good health. In fact, it was those same weather conditions that allowed the plague to become what it was. When flooding forced the marmots from the steppes in Mongolia, plague broke out in China and quickly spread west. By quickly, I mean, within a few years. Mongol raiders hurled plague-ridden bodies over walls to wipe out cities and spread the disease. And ships brought it to a Genoese port. Okay... please don't quote me, I did the research paper a while ago. Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the whole story (or "How did the Black Death Influence European Art?...), please let me know, I'll send it in PDF.

But, the point is, that health wasn't a guarantee in Europe. Populations were high, people were poor. Food was poorer. Droughts, floods and anthrax weren't isolated incidents. It happened for 20 years. That's not figuring in the ergot poisonings or environmental factors, or other disease that had an impact on people's growth.

 

[Shockley]

Well, I don't think anyone would argue about the potential for human growth due to changes in diet. Just as an example, the American soldiers in World War I grew an average of two inches during their time in the service just because so many of them were finally able to meet their basic dietary needs (I have a World War I uniform in my possession, and I am small (5'6) for the present day - this person was substantially smaller than I). I think the question posed in the thread is less about potential for growth, which is basically a given, but what the actual height ranges of the time were.

 

[Sheilawisz]

You have a very impressive knowledge, Maiden. Have you read the book The Black Death & The World it Made by Norman Cantor?

That book helped me a lot to write the medieval part of Travel to Castile. It's one of the few information resources that you can find about Joan, providing the most likely theory about what really happened to her. The book also describes what the Fourteenth Century was like in Europe, everything from their way of thinking to the political aspects of their world.

I also recommend The History Channel's two-hour special The Plague.

After all of this, I have come to the conclusion that the Plantagenets would have been really tall for their times even if John of Gaunt was just 6' and not 6'7''. Maybe Queen Philippa was 5'6'' and still that would have been regarded as impressive, so the real-life Joan could have been 5'3'' or 5'4''.

I have already made Joan 5'4'' in my story, thank you everyone =)