Growth and Maturation during Adolescence

by James M. Tanner

The adolescent growth spurt is a constant phe- by scme 2 9'0 in height; after it by an average of
nomenon and occurs in all children, though it about 8 9'0. The difference partly comes about
varies in intensity and duration from one child because of the later occurrence of the male
to another. The peak velocity of growth in spurt, allowing an extra period for growth, even
height averages about 10 cm a year in boys, and at the slow prepubertal velocity; and partly be-
slightly less in girls. In boys the spurt takes pla- cause of the greater intensity of the spurt itself.
ce on average between 12 1/2 and 15 1 /2 years Practically all skeletal and muscular dimen-
of age and in girls some two years earlier. sions take part in the spurt, though not to an
The sex difference can be seen in Figure 1, equal degree. Most of the spurt in height is due
which shows the velocity curves for a group of to trunk growth rather than growth of the legs.
boys who have their peak velocity between 14 The muscles appear to have their spurt about
and IS, and a group of girls with their peak be- three months after the height peak; and the
tween 12 and 13. The difference in size between weight peak velocity occurs about six months
men and women is to a large degree due to dif- after the height peak.
ferences in timing and intensity of the ado- The heart has a spurt in size no less than the
lescent spurt; before it boys and girls differ only other muscles, and other organs accelerate their
growth also. Probably even the eye, the most
advanced of any organ in maturity and thus the

lo F I-\
one with least growth still to undergo, has a
slight spurt, to judge from the particularly rapid

\ change towards myopia (short-sightedness)

r
which occurs about this age. The degree of my-
opia increases continuously from age six or
earlier till maturity, but this accelerated rate of
i change at puberty would be most simply ac-
counted for by a fractionally greater spurt in
axial than in vertical diameters.
It is not clear whether a spurt occurs in brain-
growth. In the bones of the face there is a spurt,
though a relatively slight one. Individual varia-
bility is sufficient so that in some children no
detectable spurt occurs at all in some head and
I 1 1 I I I 1 1 1 1 1 i
*%.._.
.
.....
1 , face measurements, including those of the
6 8 10 I2 14 16 18
pituitary fossa. In the average child, however,
AGE, YEARS the jaw becomes longer in relation to the front
Figure 1: part of the face, and also thicker and more pro-
Adolescent spurt in height growth for girls and boys. jecting. The profile becomes straighter, the in-
The curves are from subjects who have their peak vel-
ocities during the modal years 12-13 for girls and James M. Tanner, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.C.P.,
14-15 for boys. Actual mean increments, each F.R.C.Psych., is Professor of Child Health and
plotted at centre of its half-year period. (From Tan- Growth, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford
ner, 1962). Street, London, WClN IEH, England
NUTRITION RMEWSIYOL 39,NO. 21FEBRUARY 1981 43
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cisors of both jaws more upright, and the nose Development of the Reproductive System
more projecting. All these changes are greater The adolescent spurt in skeletal and muscular
in boys than in girls. dimensions is closely related to the rapid devel-
opment of the reproductive system which takes
Sex Differences place at this time. In Figure 2 (b) the events of
Many of the sex differences of body size and adolescence in the male are outlined diagram-
shape seen in adults are the result of differential matically. The solid areas marked 'penis' and
growth patterns at adolescence. The greater 'testis' represent the period of acclerated
relative width of shoulders in the male and hips growth of these organs, and the horizontal lines
in the female is largely due to specific stimulation and rating numbers marked 'pubic hair' stand
of cartilage cells, by androgens in the first in- for its advent and development. The sequences
stance and oestrogens in the second. The greater and timings represent in each case the average
growth of the male muscles also results from value. To give an idea of the individual depar-
androgen stimulation, as do some other physio- tures from this, figures for the range of ages at
logical differences mentioned below. which the spurts for height, penis, and testis
Not all sex differences develop in this way. growth begin and end are inserted tinder the
The greater length of the male legs relative to first and last points of the curves or bars. The
the trunk comes about as a consequence of the acceleration of penis growth, for example, be-
longer prepubescent period of male growth, gins on average at about age 12 112 years, but
since the legs are growing faster than the trunk sometimes occurs as early as 10 1/2 years and
during this particular time. Other sex differen- sometimes as late as 14 years. There are thus a
ces begin still earlier. The male forearm is longer, few boys who d o not begin their spurts in height
relative to the upper arm or the height, than the or penis development until the earliest have en-
female forearm; and this difference is already tirely completed theirs. At age 13 and 14 there is
established at birth, and increases gradually an enormous variablitiy in development
throughout the whole growing period. It is amongst any group of boys, w h o range practi-
probably caused by the laying down in early cally all the way from complete maturity to ab-
foetal life of slightly more tissue in this area in solute pre-adolescence. The fact raises difficult
the male, or of slightly more active tissue. I t rocial and educational problems and is itself a
occurs in some other primates, as well as in contributory t'actor to the psychological mal-
man. adjustment sometimes seen in adolescents.
A similar mechanism may be responsible for The sequence of events is much less variable
the sex difference in relative lengths of second than the age at which they take place. The first
and fourth fingers. The second finger is longer sign of puberty in boys is an accelerated growth
than the fourth more frequently in females than in testes and scrotum. Slight growth of pubic
in males and this difference is also established hair may start at about the same time, but pro-
before birth. The most striking of all the pre- ceeds slowly until about the time the height and
pubertal sex differences, however, is the earlier penis simultaneously accelerate, which it also
maturation of the female, discussed later. grows faster. This is usually about a year after
the first testicular acceleration. The testicular
growth is mainly due to increase in size of the
44 NUTRITION REVIEWSNOL. 39, NO. PIFEBRUARY 1981
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seminal tubules; the androgen-producing Leydig pears shortly before axillary hair. In boys facial
cells appear to develop more or less simul- hair begins at about the same time as axillary
taneously. hair. An increase in length and pigmentation
Axillary hair usually first appears about two occurs first in the hair at the corners of the
years after the beginning of pubic hair growth, upper lip, then spreads medially. Hair next
. though there is sufficient individual variability appears on the upper part of the cheeks and in
so that in a very few children axillary hair ac- the midline just below the lower lip, and finally
tually precedes pubic hair in appearance. Cir- along the sides and lower border of the chin.
cumanal hair, which arises independently of the The remainder of the body-hair appears from
spread of pubic hair down the perineum, ap- about the time of first axillary hair development
until a considerable period after puberty. The
ultimate amount of body-hair an individual de-
velops seems to depend largely on heredity,
though whether because of the kinds and
amounts of hormones secreted or because of the
reactivity of the end-organs is not known.
Menarche
(05-15 5 The enlargement of the larynx in boys occurs
Breast 2 2:;:.:3;:: 3 ii:.:.:.:: 4 ~ : : : ~ ~ : : ~ :5: : ~ ~ ~ : ~ ~ : ~ ~ ~ at
: about the time the penis growth is nearing
1-13 12-18
completion. The voice change is a gradual one
Pubic hair 21111111113 i 111111114 lllllllllllllllllllllll5 I and is often not complete until adolescence is
I1 9I 10I 11I 112 1 3 I I4 1I5 16I 17 practically over. In boys at adolescence there
I

are frequently some changes seen in the breast:

the areola enlarges in diameter and darkens. In
I I I I I I
some boys - about a third of most groups stu-
died - there is a distinct enlargement with pro-

/'
-
jection of the areola and the presence of firm
Height sDurt subareolar mammary tissue. This occurs about

-
midway through adolescence and lasts from a
Penis
10.5-14 5 12.5-16.5
year to 18 months, after which in the majority
of boys the mound and tissue disappear sponta-
Testis
9.5-13.5 13.5-0 neously.
C rating 2 .......... 5
3.:::::::::.:::.4 :::>::::*::>:: A designation of how far a child has prog-
Pubic hair 2~llil3111111111111411111111115
ressed through adolescence is frequently needed
I I 1 I I I I 1
in clinical, anthropological, and educational
9 10 11 I2 13 14 15 16
work, and standards for rating the development
Age. years of pubic hair, genitalia and the breasts will be
Figure 2: found in texts on adolescent development.
Diagram of sequence of events at adolescence in girls A diagram of the events of adolescence in
and boys. An average child i represented; the range
of ages within each event charted may begin and end girls is given in Figure 2 (a). As in boys, there is
is given by the figures placed below its start and a large variation in the time at which the spurt
finish. (From Marshall and Tanner, 1970). begins, though the sequence of events is fairly
NUTRITION REWEWSNOL 39,NO. 2lFEBRUARY 1981 45
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constant. The appearance of the breast-bud is dual reduction of the deceleration. The points
as a rule the first sign of puberty, though the ap- marked SS and M stand for the first appearance
pearance of pubic hair may sometimes precede of breast-bud and menarche respectively. It is
it. The uterus and vagina develop simul- striking how the one coincides with maximum
taneously with the breast. Menarche (the first acceleration and the other with maximum de-
menstrual period) occurs almost invariably celeration.
after the peak of the height spurt has been pass- Menarche marks a definitive and probably
ed. In Figure 3 is shown a Gompertz curve fitted mature stage of uterine development, but it
to the growth in height of an individual girl, dif- does not usually signifiy the attainment of full
ferentiated to give curves of velocity (above) reproductive function. The early menstrual
and acceleration (below). The form of the accel- cycles frequently occur without an ovum being
eration curve is interesting and shows the gra- shed; during the first year or more after
menarche there is a period of relative infertility,
characteristic of apes and monkeys as well as
the human.
There are marked changes in body composi-
tion accompanying the adolescent spurt, especi-
t
t t
ally in boys. Figure 4 shows the increase of limb
muscle, estimated from radiographs of arm and
calf taken so that bone, muscle and fat can be
distinguished. The peak of the muscle growth
velocity is somewhat later than the peak height
velocity and thus occurs coincidentally with the
peak of sitting height and shoulder width. It is
much higher in boys than in girls. However,
girls do have an adolescent spurt in muscle, and
since it occurs earlier than in boys, girls on aver-
age actually have more muscle than boys for a
short period, as Figure 4 shows. The increase in
size of muscles reflects increased amounts of
contractile protein and of nuclei, and underlies
the great increase of strength occurring simul-
taneously (see below). Other muscles, including
-4 t I0 the heart, show similar growth curves.
ACE. YEARS Subcutaneous fat, or at least subcutaneous
Figure 3: fat on the limbs, has quite the opposite curve.
Velocity (above) and acceleration (below) curves of Figure 5 shows the velocity curve of limb fat in
growth in stature of girl from age 9 years to 18 years.
a group of children followed longitudinally,
Calculated from data using first and second derivativ-
es of fitted Gompertz curve.B2 represents the first whose curves have been aligned as before, so
appearance of breast development. (From Israel- that age is measured in years before and after
sohn, 1960). their own peak height velocity. In boys the area
46 NUTRITION REVIEWSNOL. 39,NO. 21FEBRUARY 1981
 17534887, 1981, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-4887.1981.tb06734.x by Libya Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [08/05/2025]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
C?
gramrne of muscle becomes greater in boys at
this time, owing to changes in the structural and
14
-
.-.Boys i* ' biochemical nature of the muscle cells induced
o - - *Girls i
-
i
13

i IY-

..-
i'
C W I I I W D f41 C S 4 R E 4

,GIILS
I

= 12
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+
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3, f
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\ I
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$ P"
./* 11 -
J
tb .
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7 - KM

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4 6 e m vz 14 16 18 I L I 1
 17534887, 1981, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-4887.1981.tb06734.x by Libya Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [08/05/2025]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
by male sex hormone. The curves in Figure 6 are until puberty begins, when a wide gap opens
from a longitudinal study. Each individual test even between persons of the same overall size.
represents the best of three trials, made with Boys develon larger hearts as well as larger
each child competing against his own previous skeletal muscles, larger lungs, higher systolic
reading, and also against a classmate of similar blood pressure, lower resting heart-rate, a
ability. Only with such precautions can maxi- greater capacity for carrying oxygen in the
ma1 values be approached. Other data indicate blood, and a greater power of neutralising the
that except in hands and forearms, girls and chemical products of muscular exercise. The
boys are similar in strength for given body size number of red blood cells and the amount of

KG. . KG.
601 STRENGTH OF ARM PULL
6or STRENGTH OF ARM THRUST

50 -

40-

30 -
-
-
20

II
I
I2
I
13
1
14
I
I5
1
16
I
17
2ol
I 1
II
I
I2
I
13
I
14
I
I5
I
16
I
17
AGE, YEARS AGE, YEARS
Figure 6:
Strength of arm pull and arm thrust from ages 11 to 17. Mixed longitudinal data, 65-93 boys and 66-93
girls in each group. (From Tanner, 1962, based on data of Jones)
48 NUTRITION REVIEWSIVOL. 39, NO. 21FEBRUARY 7987
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haemoglobin, the pigment which carries oxygen lous to consider all three as equally grown-up
from lungs to muscles, both increase at ado- physically, or, since much behaviour at this age
lescence in boys, but remain unchanged in girls. is conditioned by physical status, in their social
In short, the male becomes more adapted at relations. The statement that a boy is 14 years
puberty for the tasks of hunting, fighting and old is in most contexts hopelessly vague; all de-
manipulating all sorts of heavy objects. pends, morphologically, physiologically, and
It is as a direct result of these changes that sociologically on whether he is pre-adolescent,
athletic ability increases so much in boys at ado- mid-adolescent or post-adolescent.
lescence. The popular notion of a boy 'out- Evidently we need a measure of develop-
growing his strength' at this time has little scien- mental age, or physiological maturity, which
tific support. On. the contrary, power, athletic represents more truthfully than chronological
skill and physical endurance all increase progres- age how far a given individual has progressed
ively and rapidly throughout adolescence. If along his or her road to full maturity. Height is
the adolescent becomes weak and easily ex- not such a measure, because persons differ in
hausted, it is usually for psychological reasons, mature height. Thus tallness in a child may
not physiological ones. However, there is a signify either a rapid tempo of growth in a child
brief period during which trunk length has in- going to be of average height when adult, or an
creased relatively to the legs, bringing new average tempo of growth in a child going to be
problems of balance, while the muscles have yet tall when adult. The percentage of the individ-
to reach their full size and strength. This period ual's own mature height reached at any age is a
seldom lasts more than six months, but may better measure, but available only retrospec-
bring temporary problems in such specialized tively. Age at entry to the various stages of
groups as young male ballet dancers, weight- puberty is a valid measure, since all normal
lifters and field-event athletes. children pass through the same stages; but this
measure also is available only late in growth.
Development Age and the Concept of However, there are many possible measures of
Physiological Maturity developmental age, ranging from the number of
Though all the events of adolescence described erupted teeth to the percentage of water in
above usually occur together, linked in a rather muscle cells. The various"age' scales do not
uniform sequence, the age at which they happen necessarily coincide and each has its particular
varies greatly from one child to another. From a use. The measure most generally used derives
file of photographs of normally developing from the successive stages of development of
boys aged exactly 14 years it is easy to select the skeleton as seen in radiographs. This measure
three examples which illustrate this (Figure 7). is applicable throughout the whole period of
One boy is small, with childish muscles and no growth and is called skeletal maturity or bone
development of reproductive organs or body- age.
hair; he could be mistaken for a 12-year-old. The figure for skeletal maturity is derived by
Another is practically a grown man, with broad comparing the given radiograph with a set of
shoulders, strong muscles, adult genitalia and a standards. There are two ways in which this
bass voice. The third boy is in a stage intermedi- may be done. In the older 'atlas' method one
ate between these two. It is manifestly ridicu- matches the given radiograph successively with
NUTRITION REVIEWSIVOL. 39,NO. PIFEBRUARY 1981 49
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Figure 7: Three boys, aged 14. at different stages of puberty: three girls, aged 12, at different stages of puber-

NUTRmON RMEWSNOL. 39,NO. ?/FEBRUARY 1981

ty. (FromTanner, 1978)

50
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standards representing age five, age six, and so the same, normal, girls. Evidently the variation
on, and see with which age standard it most in relation to bone age is much less; indeed the
nearly coincides. The more recently developed 95 To ranges are 1 1 .O to 15.0 in terms of chrono-
method is to establish a series of standard stages logical age but only 12.0 to 14.0 in terms of
through which each bone passes, and to match bone age.
each bone of the given radiograph with these The link between skeletal maturity and the
stages. Each bone is thus given a score, corres- beginning of puberty (i.e. the appearance of
ponding to the stage reached, and the whole breasts or the enlargement of testes) is looser.
radiograph scores a total of so many maturity However, at the extremes of advancement or
points. This score is then compared with the delay in normal children, and even more in the
range of scores of the standard group at the abnormally advanced or delayed, skeletal
same age and a percentile status is then given to maturity is a good guide to what is happening
the child in skeletal maturity. A skeletal age and what is likely to happen. If a boy is very
may also be assigned, this being simply the age much delayed in puberty, then estimation of his
at which the given score lies at the 50th percen- bone age provides important information. If
tile (see Tanner, Whitehouse, Marshall, Healy bone age is delayed then development is all of a
and Goldstein, 1975). piece and we may expect puberty to occur in the
course of time; he simply has delay in growth. If
Relations between Different Measures o f the bone age is at an immediately prepubertal
Maturity level of about 14.5 ’years’ and remains so over a
The milestones that are most closely linked are period, then something is actually stopping
age at menarche and bone age. Figure 8 shows puberty from occurring.
the frequency distribution of age at menarche in
relation to chronological age and skeletal age in Secular Trend
40- - During approximately the last hundred years in
industrialised countries, and recently in some
35- N-59 developing ones, children have been getting
-CA
30- nS A
larger and growing to maturity more rapidly.
This is known as the ’secular trend’ in growth.
NO. 25-
Its magnitude is such that in Europe, America
OF 20- and Japan it has dwarfed the differences be-
C H I L D R E N 15- -- tween occupational groups.
Figure 9 shows Swedish data, which are the
most comprehensive available for any country
over the whole period. The differences in child-
ren’s heights between 1883 and 1938 amount to
nearly 1 1/2 years of growth; differences be-
tween 1938 and 1968 are much less. At the age
when growth ceases, as shown by the 16-18
year-old girls, the secular trend is still present,
but much smaller than in childhood.
NUTRITION REVIEWSIYOL. 39,NO. 2IFEBRUARY 1981 51
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The occurrence of a secular increase in height took place to provide parliamentary evidence
and weight has been documented in nearly all on the effect of the employment of children in
European countries, including Sweden, Fin- factories. At that time, working boys aged 10
land, Norway, France, the U.K., Italy, Germa- years averaged 121 cm in height compared with
ny, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, the So- 140 cm today; those age 18 years averaged 160
viet Union, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and cm compared with 175 cm today. These differ-
Austria. From about 1900 to the present, child- ences are actually a good deal larger than the
ren in average economic circumstances have in- differences seen at present between urban slum-
creased in height at ages five to seven years by dwelling children in the underdeveloped coun-
about 1-2 cm per decade. The trend starts ear- tries and the affluent children of the industria-
ly in childhood, as pre-school data make clear.. lised West (see Figure 10).
At least in Britain it began a considerable time The trend in Canada, the USA, Australia and
ago, for Charles Robert, a factory doctor writ- other countries has been similar. Japan shows a
ing in 1876, said: “A factory child of the pre- particularly dramatic trend; from 1950 to 1970
sent day at the age of nine years weighs as much it amounted to about 3 cm/decade in seven-
as one of 10 years did in 1833 . . . each age has year-olds and 5 cm/decade in 12-year-olds.
gained one year in forty.” In 1833, the first From 1900 to 1940 the trend was less than 1
relatively large-scale measurement of children cm/decade. In the industrialised countries the
crn
ma -
Girls Hetght

170 -

160 -

(50-

140 ~

130-

120.

110 110
1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
r 8 Q 10 ii 12 13 14 is 16 ir 18 r 0 9 ia ii 12 $3 u is 16 17 (‘B
~ g eyears
. M .yeam
Figure 9: Secular trend in growth of height - Swedish boys and girls measured in 1883, 1938-39 and
1%5-71 (1%8 in figure). (From Ljung et al, 1974)

52 NUTRITION REVIEWSIVOL. 39,NO. PIFEBRUARY 1981

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stretching back to 1741 reported by V. Kiil
(1939) indicate little if any increase in male
height from 1790 to 1830,and these and other
data show a trend of some 0.3 cm per decade in
several countries from 1830 to 1880,depending
on their situation vis-a-vis the progress of the
industrial revolution. As van Wieringen (1978)
of Utrecht University has shown in analysing the
data on height of Dutch conscripts from 1851 to
the present, periods of economic setback were
associated with a stoppage or even a reversal of
the secular trend. At all times, however, the
trend has been much smaller in adults than in
children. Thus, much of the trend in children's
heights is due to their maturing earlier. This is
best shown by statistics on age at menarche, il-
cm I I , I I I I I T I I I I 1 I I I I lustrated in Figure l l. The earlier data are all
190 - 91
SO
based on recollected age, and are therefore sus-
M- BOYS HegM , ' 7, pect in detail. However, the general trend is
plain to see, and from 1880 to 1960 it averaged

11.0 .

16.0 -

#, 15.0
"7

r
Y

5P .
II.
14.0 -

13.0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 QX)111213141516l7l81
Figure 10:
Average growth in height of two groups of boys in
Ibadan, Nigeria, plotted on British Standards: (a) Figure 11:
well-off group; (b) indigent group. (From Tanner, Secular trend in age at menarche, 1860-1970. (From
1978) Tanner, 1978).
NUTRITION REVIEWSIVOL. 39.NO. 2IFEBRUARY 1981 53
 17534887, 1981, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-4887.1981.tb06734.x by Libya Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [08/05/2025]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
about 0.3 years per decade. Recently, in some Tel Aviv 13.2
places such as Oslo and London, the trend has Iran (urban) 13.3
slowed down or stopped. In other areas, for Tunis (well-off) 13.4
Madras (urban) 12.8
example, parts of Holland and Hungary, it is Madras (rural) 14.2
still continuing. A list of present-day ages of
menarche in various countries, based on mod- Asiatics
ern probit-fitted data, is given in Table 1. Burma 13.2
Singapore (average) 12.7
Table 1 Hong Kong (well-off) 12.5
Mean ages of menarche (years) in various Japan (urban) 12.9
population groups Mexico 12.8
(All data refer to period between 1960 and 1975; Yucatan (well-off) 12.5
status quo data with means calculated by pro- Eskimo 13.8
bits or logits)
Africans
Uganda (well-off) 13.4
Europe Nigeria, Ibadan (university-
Oslo 13.2 educated parents) 13.3
Stockholm 13.1 South Africa (urban) 14.9
Helsinki 13.2
Copenhagen 13.2 African-descended
Net herlands 13.4 USA, all areas 12.5
North-east England 13.4 Cuba, all areas 13.0
London 13.0 Martinique 14.0
Belgium 13.0 (Sources of data will be found in Eveleth and Tan-
Paris 13.2 ner, 1976, and Oduntan et al, 1976).
Zurich 13.1
Moscow 13.0
Warsaw 13.0 The causes of the trend are probably mul-
Budapest 12.8 tiple. Certainly better nutrition is a major
Romania (urban) 13.3 factor, and perhaps in particular more protein
Carrar, Italy 12.6
and calories in early infancy. A lessening of dis-
Naples (rural) 12.5
ease may also have contributed. Some authors
European-descended have put forward the rather fanciful idea that
Montreal 13.1 increased psychosexual stimulation consequent
USA, all areas 12.8 on modern urban living has contributed but
Sydney 13.0
there is no positive evidence for this. Girls in
New Zealand 13.0
single-sex schools have been studiously com-
Pacific pared with girls in co-educational schools in
New Zealand (Maori) 12.7 Finland and Sweden, with totally negative
New Guinea (Bundi) 18.0 results, though whether this is a fair test of
New Guinea (Megiar) 15.5
differences in psychosexual stimulation may be
Near East and India open to debate. Climatic changes have also been
Bagdad (well-off) 13.6 suggested. It is true that the world mean surface
Istanbul (well-off) 12.3 temperature rose from 1910 to 1940, but since
54 NUTRITION REVIEWSNOL. 39. NO. 21FEBRUARY 1981
 17534887, 1981, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-4887.1981.tb06734.x by Libya Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [08/05/2025]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
then it fell again, to reach 1910 levels by 1970 Kiil, V. (1939)
(Lamb. 1973). However, climate seems to exert Stature and growth of Norwegian men during
the last 200 years.
at most a very minor effect.
Skrifte Norske Videnskap Akademie, No. 6, 175
PP.
Physical Maturation, Mental Ability and
Lamb, H. H. (1973)
Emotional Development
Whither climate now?
There is considerable evidence that intellectual Nature, 244, 395-97.
and emotional advancement is to some extent
Ljung, B. O., Bergsten-Brucefors. A. and Lind-
linked to advancement in skeletal maturity. gren, G. (1974)
This may be most simply construed, at least so The secular trend in physical growth in Sweden.
far as intellectual development goes, as evidence Annals of Human Biology, 1, 245-256.
that the brain is affected by the general factor
Marshall, W.A. (1974)
of developmental tempo, in the same manner as Interrelationships of skeletal maturation, sexual
the teeth. Thus those advanced in physical de- development and somatic growth in man.
velopment do better in mental tests than those Annals of Human Biology, I , 2 9 - 4 0 .
retarded in physical development. Marshall, W. A. and Tanner, J. M. (1970)
Little can be done to diminish the individual Variation in the pattern of pubertal changes in
differences in children’s tempo of growth, for boys.
they are biologically rooted and not significant- Archives of Disease in Childhood, 45, 13-23.
ly reducible by any social action. It therefore Oduntan, S . O., Ayeni, 0. and Kale, 0. 0. (1976)
behoves all teachers, psychologists and doctors The age of menarche in Nigerian girls.
and nutritionists to be both fully aware of the Annals of Human Biology, 3, 269-274.
facts and alert to the individual problems they Roberts, C. (1876)
raise. The physical requirements of factory children.
Journal of the Statistical Society, 39, 681-733.
Tanner, J. M. (1962)
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Eveleth, P. B. and Tanner, J. M . (1976)
A., Healy, M. J. R. and Goldstein, H. (1975)
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Israelsohn, W. J . (1960)
Description and modes of analysis of human van Wieringen, J. C. (1978)
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NUTRITION REVIEWSNOL. 39,NO. 2IFEBRUARY 1981 55