People were shorter in the past. Everyone knows that, right?
It's one of those facts that gets tossed around at dinner parties or dropped into trivia nights. Think about it: "The average man in 1700 was like 5'4". " Maybe you've heard 5'5". Maybe 5'2". The number shifts depending on who's talking.
But here's the thing — most of those numbers are wrong. Plus, or at least, they're incomplete. The real story is messier, more interesting, and says a lot more about how people actually lived than a single statistic ever could And that's really what it comes down to..
What Was the Average Height in 1700
The short answer: it depends entirely on where you were born, who your parents were, and whether you survived childhood The details matter here..
If you're looking for a single global number, you won't find one. No census takers measured every adult male in France or England or Japan. Because of that, reliable height data from 1700 doesn't exist in the way we think of data today. What we have are fragments — military records, skeletal remains, indentured servant contracts, runaway slave advertisements, and the occasional diary entry from a traveling physician.
The military records problem
Most of what we "know" about 18th-century height comes from armies. Armies measured recruits. They had to — uniforms needed fitting, rations needed calculating, and commanders wanted to know if their battalions would look imposing on the parade ground.
The problem? Armies didn't recruit random cross-sections of the population.
They took young men. Sometimes criminals given a choice between the gallows and the regiment. In Prussia, the famous "Potsdam Giants" regiment specifically recruited exceptionally tall men — skewing the data wildly. Often the poorest young men. In Britain, the navy and army drew heavily from urban slums and rural parishes where malnutrition was routine Turns out it matters..
So when you see a claim like "the average British soldier in 1750 was 5'6"," that's not the average British man. That's the average British man who ended up in the army Practical, not theoretical..
Skeletal evidence tells a different story
Bioarchaeologists have measured thousands of skeletons from 18th-century burial grounds. Adult men in London averaged around 5'6" (167.The results? Women averaged 5'1" (155 cm). But in rural Yorkshire, men averaged closer to 5'7". In practice, 6 cm). In the American colonies, white men averaged 5'8" or even 5'9" — taller than their European counterparts.
Why the difference? Work intensity. Disease load. Nutrition. The colonies had more protein, less crowding, and (for free settlers) better caloric intake during the critical growth years And that's really what it comes down to..
Why It Matters
Height isn't just a curiosity. It's a biological ledger.
Anthropometric historians — yes, that's a real field — use average height as a proxy for living standards. It captures things GDP never will: how well children ate, how often they got sick, whether their mothers were nourished during pregnancy, whether clean water existed.
When average height drops across a generation, something went wrong. Consider this: economic collapse. In real terms, famine. Epidemic. War. When it rises, things improved.
The 1700s sit at a fascinating pivot point. The Little Ice Age shortened growing seasons. Population pressure pushed people onto marginal land. Cities swelled without sanitation. On the flip side, in much of Europe, heights were actually declining from a medieval peak. By the late 18th century, French recruits were shorter than their grandfathers had been Still holds up..
Meanwhile, in North America, heights were holding steady or climbing. That said, the "American advantage" in stature appears early — and it wasn't just genetics. It was environment Which is the point..
How Height Varied in 1700
By region
Western Europe: French, British, and German men clustered around 5'5" to 5'6". The Dutch were already notably tall — averaging 5'7" to 5'8" even then, thanks to dairy-rich diets and relatively equitable food distribution.
Eastern Europe: Polish and Russian peasants averaged 5'4" to 5'5". Serfdom, grain-heavy diets with little animal protein, and recurrent famine kept stature low No workaround needed..
North America (European descent): 5'8" to 5'9" for men. The highest averages in the Atlantic world. Abundant land, wild game, and dispersed settlement meant better nutrition for growing children.
West Africa: Limited data, but skeletal evidence from the Gold Coast suggests men averaged 5'7" to 5'8". The transatlantic slave trade selectively removed healthy adults, but pre-capture populations were well-nourished by regional standards Turns out it matters..
East Asia: Japanese men in the Tokugawa period averaged around 5'2" to 5'3". Rice-based diets, high population density, and limited animal protein constrained growth. Samurai were taller — they ate better Simple as that..
By social class
This is where it gets stark.
In 1760s England, aristocratic boys at Eton averaged 5'7" by age 18. Parish apprentices the same age averaged 5'2". That's a five-inch gap. Five inches That's the part that actually makes a difference..
The wealthy ate meat daily. Practically speaking, they had wet nurses, then governesses, then tutors. They didn't work in mines or factories at age eight. They didn't drink water from sewage-contaminated wells.
In France, the gap was similar. Day to day, noblemen at Versailles towered over peasants from the Auvergne. The revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille were, on average, noticeably shorter than the aristocrats they executed Most people skip this — try not to. Practical, not theoretical..
By gender
Women were shorter everywhere. The gap ranged from 4 to 6 inches depending on the population. But the ratio mattered. Even so, in well-nourished populations, women reached a higher percentage of their genetic potential. In malnourished ones, both sexes were stunted — but women often relatively more so, because cultural food allocation frequently favored boys and men.
By occupation
Sailors were short. The Royal Navy's records show average heights around 5'4" to 5'5" — but these were men who'd gone to sea as boys, often orphans or workhouse cases. Their growth had been stunted years before they shipped out.
Miners were shorter still. Coal dust, bent postures, and childhood labor underground produced men who averaged 5'3" in some British coalfields.
Artisans — tailors, watchmakers, printers — clustered around the urban average. They weren't well-fed, but they avoided the worst physical insults.
Farm laborers varied wildly. In open-field English villages, they might be relatively tall. Because of that, in Irish cottier cabins subsisting on potatoes and buttermilk, they were surprisingly tall too — potatoes and milk is actually a nutritionally complete diet, provided you get enough of both. The Irish famine hadn't happened yet.
Common Mistakes / What Most People Get Wrong
"People were just genetically shorter back then."
No. Worth adding: genetic potential for height hasn't changed in 300 years. When you take a population with "short genes" and give them modern nutrition, healthcare, and sanitation, they grow tall. So naturally, the Dutch didn't evolve new genes between 1850 and 2000. They just stopped starving And that's really what it comes down to..
"Everyone was malnourished."
Not true. The top 5-10% of society ate extremely well. Gout was a genuine aristocratic disease — caused by meat, alcohol, and sugar consumption that would make a
modern bodybuilder blush And that's really what it comes down to..
The real story isn't universal deprivation — it's systematic inequality.
The Nutrition Divide
What made the wealthy tall wasn't just eating more — it was eating better. And meat, eggs, and dairy provided complete proteins that plant-based diets alone couldn't match. Sugar and ale added calories without filling nutritional gaps. Most crucially, they ate regularly. Meals weren't sporadic affairs but structured, frequent events.
The poor faced a double burden: insufficient calories and poor nutritional quality. On the flip side, a coal miner's child might eat bread and potatoes all day, but without the protein diversity that animal foods provided, growth suffered. Even when calories were adequate — as with the Irish cottiers — the specific amino acid profiles mattered enormously.
Hidden Factors
Sanitation played a role beyond mere cleanliness. Contaminated water meant chronic intestinal damage, reducing nutrient absorption. Childhood diseases weren't just fatal — they stunted survivors. Smallpox, measles, and dysentery didn't just kill; they rewired developing bodies for scarcity The details matter here..
Stress itself affected growth. Chronic anxiety and physical labor elevated cortisol, suppressing growth hormone. The difference between a boy growing up in a London workhouse versus an Eton dormitory wasn't just food — it was entire hormonal environments Not complicated — just consistent..
Modern Parallels
We've solved some problems but created others. Also, today's wealthy children may eat processed foods instead of roasted boar's head, but they're still growing taller than their parents. Obesity has replaced malnutrition as the primary concern, yet the underlying pattern persists: resources concentrate among the privileged.
The industrial food system has made basic nutrition more accessible while making optimal nutrition more expensive. A poor child today might eat more calories than a Victorian workhouse inmate, but whether those calories build or merely sustain depends on quality — and quality costs money.
The Bigger Picture
Height was never just about individual biology. Because of that, it was a public health metric, a socioeconomic indicator, a visible marker of societal organization. When we see short stature in historical records, we're seeing the physical imprint of inequality made flesh.
This matters today because the same forces operate now. Childhood height, BMI, and developmental outcomes still correlate strongly with family income. The mechanisms have evolved — we worry about childhood obesity instead of rickets — but the fundamental dynamic remains: environment shapes biology in ways that reflect social structure.
Understanding this history doesn't just satisfy curiosity about the past. It reveals how deeply our social systems embed themselves in our very biology. The five-inch gap between Eton and parish apprentices wasn't just about nutrition — it was about power, opportunity, and the physical costs of inequality Simple, but easy to overlook..
Not obvious, but once you see it — you'll see it everywhere.
That legacy continues. We measure progress not just in GDP or technology, but in whether every child reaches their genetic potential. The samurai ate well. The aristocrats towered over their servants. In practice, today, we have the tools to ensure most children can too. The question is whether we'll use them equitably And that's really what it comes down to..
Because ultimately, height was never the point. It was proof that civilization can choose to let its children grow — or choose not to.
