title: Differences in height by education among 371,105 Dutch military conscripts.
abstract: Adult height is associated with a variety of familial and socio-economic factors and large, well-defined populations are needed for a reliable assessment of their relative contributions. We therefore analyzed recorded heights from the military health examinations of 18-year conscripts in the Netherlands born between 1944 and 1947 and observed large differences by their attained education and by their father's occupation. The 5.1 cm height gradient from lowest to highest education level was more than twice as large as the gradient between father's occupation levels. The education gradient was not explained by common determinants of height including paternal occupation as a measure of familial background, region of birth, family size, or religion.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Department, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI/KNAW)/University of Groningen, The Hague, The Netherlands; Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Frans
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: van Poppel
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Department, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, USA; Department of Molecular Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands. Electronic address: lumey@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: L H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Lumey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D004522:Educational Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel; D009426:Netherlands; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: Cognition; Education; Height; Military conscripts; Socio-economic background