ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the association between ‘poor home conditions’ or ‘psychosocial adversity’ and short stature by discussing briefly genetic influences on growth, then certain broad environmental variables, such as social class, which are known to differentiate children with retarded growth from those who are fulfilling their genetic potential. The correlation between parent and child heights increases during the first two years of the child’s life, and then changes little until puberty. A very important observation has been made about the profile of the distribution of stature among the children of manual workers. Secular trends in stature might be expected to diminish the differences between the growth of children from upper and lower social classes. During infancy a reassortment of relative sizes among children comes about, those who are larger at birth tending to grow more slowly and those who are smaller often growing more quickly.
