Twelfth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Towards the end of the 19th century, mortality and natality rates began to decline in many European countries, achieving a progressive increase in life expectancy, within a process known as demographic transition. Since the 1970s-1980s, several works have argued that this decline was driven by improvements in diet, the standard of living and by improvements in the public health infrastructure. This poster analyses the influence that the demographic transition process had on improving the nutritional status of Spanish recruits populations between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century, measured through average height. The poster analyses the case of the Valencian Community, a Spanish region located in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, which began its demographic transition process at the end of the 19th century. The evolution of the height data of 163,094 recruits born between 1860 and 1965 is compared with the evolution of the crude mortality, infant mortality and birth rates in the Valencian Community for the same dates. Likewise, the average height of the recruits is compared with the evolution of the vegetative balances for the aforementioned cohorts. The results reveal a close relationship between the secular decrease in the main vital rates (mortality, infant mortality and birth rate) and height. At higher mortality and birth rates, lower average heights. The results achieved reveal the importance that the demographic transition process can have in improving the nutritional status of current populations in developing countries.

Presenters

Javier Puche
Profesor Titular de Universidad, Departamento de Estructura e Historia Económica y Economía Pública, Universidad de Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain