Social background, adult body-height and health

To study the socio-demographic determinants of body-height and the bearing of these determinants on the association between body-height and health among Finnish adults.

Cross-sectional population survey including questions on social background, body-height and health, and retrospective questions on childhood living conditions. The data derive from a representative Survey on Living Conditions collected by Statistics Finland in 1994. The response rate was 73%. Male and female respondents > or =20 years were included in the analysis (N = 8212). Statistical methods include regression analysis and logistic regression analysis.

Body-height was strongly associated with year of birth, region, childhood living conditions and education among adult men and women. Body-height was also associated with limiting long-standing illness and perceived health as below good. Tall men had the best health and short men the poorest health. Among women the association of body-height with health differed from men, as tall women showed high levels of limiting long-standing illness, notably musculo-skeletal diseases. Adjusting for the background variables weakened but did not abolish the association between poor health and short stature among men and women.

Short stature is associated with poor health among Finnish men and women. A non-linear association among women was found for musculo-skeletal diseases. The studied social background factors explained only little of the association between body-height and health.