Guatemala: una revisión de las fuentes antropométricas disponibles

Luis Ríos
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Luis Ríos: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Historia Agraria. Revista de Agricultura e Historia Rural, 2009, issue 47, 217-238

Abstract: Diverse data indicates that Guatemala presents one of the highest levels of poverty and inequality among the Latin-American countries. In the present work we review available anthropometric sources regarding child growth and adult stature from diverse historical periods. The study of these databases indicates the presence of an increase in mean height of approximately 3 cm along the 20th century, although the mean height of an important segment of the rural population remains below 160 cm for men and 150 cm for women, and the prevalence of child malnutrition ranges between 40 and 50%. The association between socioeconomic and anthropometric variability indicates that such a low stature is mainly explained by environmental rather than genetic factors. The estimation of stature from human skeletal remains from archaeological places allows us to obtain a long term perspective. It seems that the pre-Columbian populations that inhabited the Mesoamerican region presented similar or larger stature than the current rural indigenous Guatemalan population. More research is needed in order to test this observation.

Keywords: Guatemala; Anthropometric History; child malnutrition; adult stature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 I31 I32 N96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:seh:journl:y:2009:i:47:m:april:p:217-238

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