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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 9, No. 5
Publication Date: October 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/aivp.95.10971. Mori, H. (2021). Changes in Children’s Height in Japan and South Korea in the Past Half Century: The Roles of Fruit/Vegetables on
Top of Animal Protein. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(5). 118-126.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Changes in Children’s Height in Japan and South Korea in the Past
Half Century: The Roles of Fruit/Vegetables on Top of Animal
Protein
Hiroshi Mori
Professor Emeritus, Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan
ABSTRACT
Children in Japan and South Korea in North East Asia grew in height
unprecedentedly fast,1 cm per decade in the post war economic prosperity. Food
consumption increased in quantity and quality as well, with caloric supply from
animal products augmented. Children in Japan began to grow much slower in
the1980s and ceased to grow at all ages in the early 1990s, while animal protein
supply was still on the rise. Children in Korea kept growing taller in the 1990s and
overtook their Japanese peers by 3.0 cm in mean height in the mid-2000s, even
though per capita consumption of animal products was still lower than in Japan.
Children in Korea then suddenly ceased to grow taller in mean height, while per
capita supply of animal products kept increasing vigorously toward the end of the
2010s. It was discovered that children started to turn away from vegetables in their
diets in the beginning of the 1990s and strikingly, ate less than 10% of the volume
eaten by the older generation in their 50s-60s in the end of the 2010s. As the author
has repeatedly emphasized, children in Japan started to reduce consumption of
fruit a decade before they stopped growing taller in the early-1990s. Fruit and/or
vegetables seem to have something to do with the human metabolism, which calls
for in-depth biological researches.
Keywords: children’s height, animal protein, fruit/vegetables, Japan, South Korea
INTRODUCTION
R. Steckel stated, “stature is a net measure that captures the supply of inputs to health (1995, p.
1903). It is widely accepted in human biology that protein, particularly high-quality protein
from animal products, is associated with mean height of populations, on top of genetic effects
(Baten and Blum, 2014; Grasgruber et.al., 2014; etc.). Children in “temperate Asia”
(Grasguber, 2021), Japanese and South Koreans grew in height unprecedentedly in the past half
century, as measured by mean height of male high school seniors (17 years of age): more than
1cm per decade, (School Health Examination Surveys, various issues, Ministry of Education,
government of Japan; Department of Education, government of Republic of Korea).
Japanese were a few centimeters taller than Koreans in the 1960s and 1970s, they grew more
slowly in the 1980s and stopped growing taller in height in the early-1990s. Koreans kept
growing steadily and overtook their Japanese peers by 3 cm in the mid-2000s, and then ceased
to grow any taller. Food consumption in the two countries increased appreciably, with the
supply of animal products augmented, in particular. When Korean heights exceeded those in
Japan in the mid-2000s, Japan’s per capita daily caloric supply from animal products was still
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Mori, H. (2021). Changes in Children’s Height in Japan and South Korea in the Past Half Century: The Roles of Fruit/Vegetables on Top of Animal
Protein. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(5). 118-126.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.95.10971
15% greater than Korea’s. Per capita supply of animal products kept increasing vigorously in
South Korea after Korean children stopped growing in height in the mid-2000s (Fig. 1).
There is no question that animal products played an important role in “the supply of inputs to
health” (Steckel) in the two countries but other elements must have been involved in the game:
genetics or ethnic traits (Kopczynski, 2016) and other “essential nutrients” (Blum, 2017; Mori,
2018).
The author has no background in anthropology. So, genetics cannot be discussed in this note.
The author has been engaged in food demand analyses as his main subjects and tackling with
changes in food consumption from age/cohort aspects in the past two decades or so. People
stop growing in height after their adolescence. If there exist discernible differences between
generations/ birth cohorts; i.e., children in growing ages today eat differently from those in
decades ago = current adults (Mori, Inaba, and Dyck, 2016)]. We do need to look at children.
Simple adjustments based on “adult-equivalence scales” cannot identify changes in children’s
consumption from population’s total consumption (Prais,1953).
Steering away from fruit by the young and the end of growth in children’s height in Japan
In the1994 White Paper on Agriculture, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, called for public
attention to the tendency of Japan’s young to turn away from fruit, wakamono no kudamono- banare, in the prior decade. The White Paper referred to declining fruit consumption by
households headed by the young people in their 20s and 30s, as shown by Family Income and
Expenditure Surveys (FIES), classified by age groups of household head (HH) in the 1980s. Mori
and Inaba (1997) designed an econometrically robust model, to derive individual consumption
by family members, including children, from FIES, classified by HH age groups. Tanaka and Mori
(2003) determined age and cohort effects of individual household consumption of fruit using
Nakamura’s Bayesian cohort model and projected household consumption of fruit in the 2010s
by aggregating the estimated age and cohort effects. In 2011, when actual household
consumption of fruit by HH age groups in 2010 was published, Mori and Stewart examined how
close Tanaka and Mori’s projections have turned out.
There is very little question that changes in “inputs to health” for children in their growing ages,
rather than the changes for total population, should be put into consideration in discussing the
changes in the mean height of those in their early 20s, especially in rapidly changing economies.
Children in Japan ceased to grow any taller in the early-1990s, when per capita supply of animal
protein was still on the rise (Fig. 1). Is this basically because Japanese depleted their gene
potential (Kopczynski, p.52; p57). As the 1994 White Paper on Agriculture pointed out, Japan’s
young=children had turned away from fruit in the 1980s. If Japan’s young had turned away
from milk in the 1980s and ceased to grow taller in the 1990s, no one would argue that there
could have been connections. But concerning the case of fruit, everyone might question that
there could have been meaningful connections, particularly in Japan where fruit has long been
called mizukashi, jelly dessert. Fruit is regarded as something consumed for taste rather than
nourishment.
M. Sugiura and his colleagues at the Japan Fruit Tree Research Institute, in collaboration with
M. Nakamura, Hamamatsu School of Medicine have been engaged in the Mikkabi-prospective
cohort studies since the mid-2000s, to ascertain if large intakes of mandarins lower the risks of
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osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. Their studies conclude that consumption of
mandarins helps bone-mineral accrual in human body, referring to similar empirical
investigations, which cover growing children conducted overseas (McGartland, 2004; Whiting
et al., 2004; Vatanparast et al., 2005; Prynne et al., 2006; Li, JJ, et.al.,2013; etc.).
Table 1 demonstrates that children in Japan started to turn away from fruit in the mid-1970s,
to eat in the early 1990s less than one third of what they ate in the beginning of the 1970s and
they ate one tenth of fruit consumed by adults in their 50d and 60s in the 2000s (refer to Mori
and Stewart, 2011 for greater details). The author has been suspecting that very low
consumption, nearly zero intakes of fruit by the growing children in Japan has something to do
with the cessation of mean height growth since the early 1990s, with little recognition form
human biologists either in Japan or overseas, South Korea in particular. People, either
professionals or non-professionals are in strong belief that the Japanese depleted their “gene
potential” in height in the early 1990s, whereas the Koreans kept growing in height to reach
their gene potential in the mid-2000s, in combination with continuous increases of animal
protein supply as a favorable environmental factor (B-O Lee, Korea Times, 2017; Kopczynski,
2017).
Gene Potential: Personal Observations
Japan’s economy recovered to the pre-war level in 1955andmade very fast and steady progress
to the early-1990s. Partly due to the Korean War (1950-53), Korea’s economy started fast and
steady growth only in the beginning of the 1960s. Even in the beginning of the 1990s, Korea’s
per capita GDP was only $8,496, as compared to Japan’s $38,074. In 2005, when Korean teens
overtook their Japanese peers in height by 3.0 cm, Korea’s per capita GDP was $19,225, less
than half of Japan, $44,394(in 2010 US$, World Bank, national accounts data file ).
Despite substantially lower real GDP/capita, the Korean people, including children, have been
eating more foods, in terms of per capita caloric supply of grand total, than Japanese, as shown
in Table 2. Koreans consumed 3,025 kcal/day, 8% greater than Japanese in 1980(1979-81
averages) and 3,094 kcal/day, 195 kcal greater than Japanese in 2000, for example. Further
details saved (see Table 2).
Generally, Koreans eat much more cereals (rice), with a lot more vegetables, than Japanese. The
author is fully aware of the importance of animal protein for the human body growth. However,
people in Japan grew a few cm in height in the pre-war years, with the supply of animal protein
was nearly zero (Mori and S. Kim, 2020).
Teens in Japan ceased to grow taller in the early-1990s, with male high school seniors at 171
cm in mean height, while teens in Korea kept growing taller vigorously but suddenly stopped
growing taller in the mid-2000s, at mean height of 174 cm. Have Japanese and Koreans depleted
their respective gene potentials? The author would not agree, from his own personal
observations. He was 166 cm when young. He was hungry, wanted to eat more rice, all the years
from his middle school to the second year of the university, when he could buy a cup of noodle,
without ration tickets. Average per capita caloric supply was less than 1,700 kcal/day, when he
was in middle and high school and 1,955 kcal/day, when he graduated from university
(Ministry of Agriculture, Food Balance Sheets, Ministry Library).
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Mori, H. (2021). Changes in Children’s Height in Japan and South Korea in the Past Half Century: The Roles of Fruit/Vegetables on Top of Animal
Protein. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(5). 118-126.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.95.10971
He was not properly fed, to reach gene potential (his parents were only a little taller than
average of their generation). He has two sons who spent their school years in the 1970s, when
per capita caloric supply from animal products was 400~500 kcal/day, substantially lower
than in the 1990s. So, they did not reach the gene potential and yet both of them are 175 cm.
One of them has a son, in university, who is 181 cm in height. He is not an abnormally “huge
person” at all, only properly fed: good amounts of animal products, with fruit and vegetables. I
suspect that his children, boys in the 2040s, would be as tall as their father.
Korean children started to turn away from vegetables in the early 1990s and suddenly
ceased to grow taller in the mid-2000s
The author was born in Seoul, Korea. He does not speak Korean but his two granddaughters
took Korean as second foreign language in college and speak it. The author would often visit
Korea and stop over at Seoul, whenever he goes overseas. One thing he and his family love about
Korea is that Kimchi is free at the restaurants or it is included in the prices of grilled meat, for
example. At the university staff cafeteria, you can pick as much Kimchi from Kimchi-stand free.
Anyhow, Korean people eat lots of rice with Kimchi.
Only very recently, the author was provided with Statistics Korea, Household Income and
Expenditure Surveys on major food groups, 1990 to 2019, classified by age groups of household
head. Table 3 enumerates the changes in household expenditures on vegetables by household
members by age groups, derived from the Surveys by the author. The Korea’s surveys provide
only expenditures in current Wons, not prices paid nor quantities. Numbers in the table denote
expenditures in 2010 Wons. Just like the household consumption of fresh fruit in Japan, the
young in Korea no longer eat a lot of vegetables in recent years. Children in low teens, 10~14,
spend(consume) W 2,154 on vegetables, less than 10% of expenditures by those in their
50s~60s in 2018-19, for example. Per capita expenditures on vegetables have been gradually
declining across all age groups in the past three decades and expenditures by the younger age
groups have declined radically. Those in 15~19 in 1990-01, aged to 25-29 in 1999-2000,
35-39 in 2009-2010 and 45-49 in 2019-2020, along the diagonal of Table 3. When reading the
table vertically, along pure ages, per capita consumption tends to increase distinctly. If you
follow the same birth-cohort along the diagonal, per capita consumption neither increase
nor decrease appreciably.
Table 4 provides the statistical outcomes of changes in per capita consumption by age groups
from 1990 to 2019, decomposed into age/period/cohort effects by Bayesian standard cohort
model (T. Nakamura, 1982 and 1986, programmed workable in Microsoft Visual Basic by Y.
Saegusa, 2010). When age effects (increasingly positive for older people) and cohort effects
(increasingly negative for the newer cohorts) are accounted for, pure period effects for
vegetables become drastically negative from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s in Korea, against
the author’s intuitive judgments. How or why this sudden change in “pure” period effects took
place should be investigated by the students of the Korean industry.
The young in the newer cohorts, born after the mid-1970s, started to turn away from vegetables
drastically in South Korea. This may have something to do with seemingly sudden suspension
of growth in children’s height in the mid-2000s, which may deserve in-depth research by
human biologists.
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CONCLUSIONS
When one eats more, that person or population will get bigger in stature. When one is in the
growing ages, one will get taller in height, only if properly fed. Children in Japan and South
Korea in Temperate Asia grew in height unprecedentedly in the postwar prosperity. Children
in Japan ceased to grow taller at the beginning of the 1990s, despite continued increases in
animal protein. Korean children caught-up with them. Korean children kept growing rapidly to
overtake their Japanese peers by 3 cm in the mid-2000s but then stopped growing any taller
toward the end of the 2010s, despite the steady increases in supply of animal protein.
Children in both countries ceased to grow taller, even though the countries’ per capita supply
of animal products was still on the rise. The author discovered only recently one thing in
common in the two countries in respect of children’s food consumption, i.e., children in Japan
started to leave away from fruit a decade and a half ago, before ceasing to grow taller and that
children in Korea started to reduce consumption of vegetables in their diets a decade and a half
before they suddenly ceased to grow any taller.
As observed in the preceding sections, children in Japan reduced their fruit consumption
gradually but so drastically that they ate less than 10% of the volume eaten by adults in their
50s and 60s in the 2000s and Korean children reduced their vegetable consumption to eat less
than 10% of the amount taken by the older generations in their 50s and 60s in the end of the
2010s.
The author has no background in nutrition and human biology. According to a few literatures,
plentiful consumption of fruit and/or vegetables contributes to the bone mineral accrual in the
human body, which may be associated with children’s height development.
When discussing the children’s growth in height, it is preferable to identify changes in per capita
food consumption by children during their ages of growth rather than the overall per capita
consumption of the population. This is especially true in the modernizing society where
consumption varies by generations/birth cohorts.
This is what the food economists can contribute to the clarification of the development of
children’s height from macro-data.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author is grateful to anonymous referees for valuable comments.
Many thanks go to Howard Elliott and John Dyck, long time friends in North America for
comments and language edits.
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Protein. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(5). 118-126.
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