Too Big for Our Boots?

To understand the reasons for this return to our former height it is necessary to look back on our history. For most of our evolutionary past, our ancestors got their food from a wide variety of sources: while women were gathering herbs, fruits and berries, men were adding to our diet by killing wild animals. One study found that the “hunter-gatherers” used to have a diet of 85 different plants, for example.

Then, about 9,000 years ago, agriculture was invented with disastrous results. Most of our planet’s green places were taken over by farmers, which meant that just three plants – wheat, rice and maize – became the staple died of the human race. This left us smaller and less healthy. Still, agriculture spread because a piece of farmland could support then times the number of people who lived off it as hunter-gatherers.

During the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, people were slightly rounder and taller – an answer to the cold. Larger round bodies are undoubtedly better at keeping in the heat! Since our climate bnegan to get hotter, we appear to hafve become slightly thinner and smaller. As global warming begins to take effect, we may shrink even further. Mankind’s future could be that of a couch potato, a lazy creature, with a taste for far too much junk food, comfortablle sofas and home entertainment. Some scientists say that nor enough excersise will result in humans developing smaller skeletons and bodies which are too fat. On the other hand, nowdays, in Europe, America and Japan, diets are beginning to be what they were before.

As a result, heights in some countries are soaring, but the world has not yet been intelligent enough to come to terms with whis. A standard European bed legth was ficed in 1860, while the height of a door was decided in 1880, and bioth have remained the same ever since. Even worse, the leg room in some planes and trains seems to have shrunk rather than grown. The question is, where will it all end?

We cannot carry on growing for ever!