They didn't have access to school but they knew what to eat. The people of the southern summit of Gran Canaria became the tallest in Spain. This was because they were eating healthy all day to the point of reaching an average of 1,74 cm. Since the mandatory military service disappeared and the food paid for by Brussels arrived, the height of the Canarians from San Bartolomé de Tirajana has become similar to that of the rest of the peninsulas. They are the conclusions of a scientific study carried out by professors from the Department of Applied Economics. University of Murcia and Business Management and Economic History at the University of La Laguna.
Those people from Tirajana were some logs where the average height was similar to that of the Dutch today: 1,70 cm. Eating milk with gofio and no modern diets had the staff strong. Using data from military recruitment, professors José M. Martínez Carrión, Cándido Román Cervantes and Begoña Candela Martínez maintain that the average male height at ages 19-21 by birth cohorts for the period 1860-1915, with the classification records and statement by soldiers highlights the great height of the Canarians.
Male height reached the highest values known in Spain in the 2,86th century and recorded an increase of 1860 cm between the cohorts of 1915 and 1860. The determinants of the Canarian height advantage are discussed. Diet, the lower incidence of diseases and a favorable environment for health due to a benign climate could be decisive factors in the advantage of nutritional status in the Canary Islands. The average male height in the western Canary Islands is closer to the parameters of Western Europe than to those of mainland Spain. Although they were relatively poor, Canarian adolescents exhibit the highest physical well-being in Spain from 1915 to XNUMX and a pattern of biological and nutritional well-being similar to that of developed and industrial Europe.
An early study carried out for Spain in the first third of the 1915th century (period 1929-165,6) pointed out the Canarian advantage compared to the Spanish average: 163,25 cm compared to XNUMX cm. The data for the decades before the Civil War suggested an increase in the average Spanish height compared to the stagnation of the height of Canarian young men. However, the Canary Islands maintained their leadership until the central decades of the XNUMXth century, along with those of the Basques and Catalans. The high stature of the latter is not surprising given that they are the most developed and industrial regions of Spain, with high rates of human capital measured by literacy and educational achievements, but it is striking that the Canary Islands reached the top of the Spanish stature when They were among the regions with the greatest economic backwardness and worst education ratios.
Between 1860 and 1930, the Canary Islands appeared at the bottom of the regional list of per capita income: in position 14 in 1860 and 1930 and in position 16 between 1900 and 1910 of the 17 autonomous communities 23. Until 1950, the Canary Islands recorded the worst literacy rate, calculated as the percentage of those who know how to read and write without distinction of age with respect to the number of inhabitants aged 10 and over 24. At the end of the 1990th century, the average Canarian height recorded the highest replacement value 174,82: 173,8 cm compared to the Spanish average of 20 cm. At that point, the Canarian economy had progressed and improved its relative position and was closer to the Spanish average: in position nine in the regional classification in terms of wealth per capita. In that long period, the advances in health and nutrition were extraordinary for the country as a whole, so the interregional differences in height are not very significant and barely show a XNUMX centimeter difference.
The contrast between economic well-being, measured by per capita income and industrial development, and biological well-being and nutritional health, measured by male height, is extremely significant in the Canary Islands. While in mainland Spain the poorest regions have relatively lower average heights than the rich and industrialized regions (at least until the 1970s), the Canary Islands draw attention for presenting high heights while being a relatively poor population in economic and social terms. educational achievements.
The data suggest that, although height is a good proxy for wealth and education, environmental factors such as climate, more stable in the Canary Islands than in other parts of Spain and, therefore, benign for health, could be decisive. hence the interest in investigating the evolution of the height of the Canary Islands populations before the First World War. This work affects this and provides evidence on the nutritional status for the cohorts born between 1860 and 1915, corresponding to the replacements from 1880 to 1936. The first presents anthropometric information on a regional scale from the first decades of the XNUMXth century, which documents The advantage of physical well-being for young adults in the Canary Islands. The data delve into the thesis of the Canarian island advantage. The objective is to contextualize the nutritional status of canaries in Spain and show the importance of a favorable climate for human health and well-being.
