著者

Mori Hiroshi Cole Tim Kim Sanghyo

出版者

専修大学経済学会

雑誌

専修経済学論集 (ISSN:03864383)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.3, pp.29-39, 2021-03-15

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Japan's economy made rapid and steady progress in the post-war half century and children grew by 2 cm per decade. Economic development in South Korea was some two decades behind Japan, due to the Korean War (1950-53). Teens in Korea were 2-3 cm shorter in height than their Japanese peers in the 1960-70s, caught-up with the latter in the early 1990s and then outgrew Japanese teens by 3 cm in the mid-2000s. They ceased, however, to grow any taller afterwards, whereas the national economy remained prosperous and per capita supply of animal-sourced foods, including milk increased appreciably.School boys in Korea were 1.5 cm greater than their Japanese peers in growth velocity from 1st graders in primary school to high school seniors in the early 2000s but began to fall persistently in velocity to be 2 cm below Japanese in the end of the 2010s.Analyzing Household Expenditure Surveys, 1990 to 2019, the authors were stunned to discover that Korean children started to turn away from vegetables in household consumption in the mid-1990s and ate as little as 10% of vegetables as the control group (people in their 50s) in the mid-2010s. Children in Japan started to steer away from fruit and vegetables in the end of the 1970s, when supply of per capita meat and milk was expanding. It is suspected that vegetables and fruit may be among essential nutrients for child height development.