Growth and life course health development

• Type of Material: Book Chapter
• Authors: Amanda Mummert, Emory University; Meriah Schoen, Emory University; Michelle Lampl, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2018
• Publisher: Emory University Libraries
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2018
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-47143-3?page=1#toc
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Handbook of Life Course Health Development
• Start Page: 405
• End Page: 429
• Keywords: health; predictor; social conditions; well-being; physical growth; size; risk; auxology
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Human Development

Abstract

Physical growth is an indicator and predictor of both present and future health. Auxology, the science of physical growth, has historical roots in studies noting that poor social conditions harm children’s health and well-being as reflected by their size (Tanner 1981). Subsequent epidemiologic studies linking infant size to health risks emerging later in life identify that growth is a translational embodiment of health (Barker 2012). The full spectrum of biological processes by which size accrual translates life course health development remains to be clarified. Present challenges standing in the way of better understanding the nexus between growth and health include distinctions between public health information derived from population-level epidemiologic assessments and research evidence based on the study of growth biology of individuals; the current focus on attained size rather than the process of growth, or change in size, with a reliance on weight in lieu of length/height and body composition; and a tendency to interpret patterns derived from growth charts rather than understanding growth trajectories as they occur during individual biological processes.