A comparison of growth: Spanish-surnamed with non-Spanish-surnamed children

Weight, height, and head circumference measurements of 4,167 Spanish-surnamed school-aged children were compared with similar data from 2,322 non-Spanish surnamed children who resided in the same Denver, Colorado neighborhoods. These data were also compared with data from six other studies. Both male and female Spanish-surnamed children were found to weigh less, be shorter, and have smaller head circumferences than non-Spanish-surnamed children living in the same Denver neighborhoods. The sizes of the children in these two populations residing in lower and lower-middle class neighborhoods were closer to each other than to the sizes of children from middle and upper-middle socioeconomic classes as measured in previous studies or to the sizes of children in the recently published cross-sectional National Center for Health Statistics study. Such comparisons suggest that growth retardation is more a reflection of socioeconomic factors than of ethnic-genetic factors.