![Height of English factory children in 1833 compared with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) references. The heights of the factory children are shown as deficits, in cm, to both the 50th percentile and the 5th percentile of the NCHS references. Original figure by B Bogin, first appeared in Bogin (2021), based on Chadwick's data as published by Tanner [14]](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372321424/figure/fig2/AS:11431281174806582@1689344601493/Height-of-English-factory-children-in-1833-compared-with-the-National-Center-for-Health_Q320.jpg)
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Journal of
Physiological Anthropology
What makes people grow? Love andhope
Barry Bogin1,2,3,4*
Abstract
Background Hope and love are popular themes of literature and art in many human societies. The human physiol-
ogy of love and hope is less well understood. This review presents evidence that the lack of love and/or hope delays
growth disturbs development and maturation and even kills.
Main body Love and hope intersect in promoting healthy human development. Love provides a sense of security
and attachment, which are necessary for healthy physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Hope provides
a sense of optimism and resilience in the face of adversity. Loving relationships can foster a sense of hope in indi-
viduals and in society by providing support systems during difficult times. Similarly, having a sense of hope can
make it easier to form loving relationships by providing individuals with the confidence to connect with others.
Hope and love are the fundamental basis of human biocultural reproduction, which is the human style of coop-
eration in the production, feeding, and care of offspring. Examples are given of the association between human
growth in height with love and hope, including (1) the global “Long Depression” of 1873–1896, (2) “hospitalism”
and the abuse/neglect of infants and children, (3) adoption, (4) international migration, (5) colonial conquest, and (6)
social, economic, and political change in Japan between 1970 and 1990.
Conclusion Overall, this review suggests that love and hope are both critical factors in promoting healthy human
development and that they intersect in complex ways to support emotional well-being.
Keywords Biocultural reproduction, SEPE, Secular trend, Community effects, Strategic growth
Background
Hope—Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the
face of uncertainty. e audacity of hope! ~ Barack
Obama, 2004 keynote address to the Democratic
Convention.
e human mind can cope with anything but the
loss of hope. ~ Elizabeth Luard, from her book Fam-
ily Life, 1996, p. 28).
I think that HOPE is the single most important emo-
tional factor for all aspects of human growth, devel-
opment, and maturation. B Bogin, from the lecture
‘Hope, despair, and hope again: the intersecting
cycles for healthy human growth and development’
delivered at Durham University 23 February 2023.
As a child in the 1950s, my mother said to me: “ere
are starving children in Europe. Eat your supper, other-
wise you will not grow.” is seemed right to me at the
time. During and after World War II, Europe did experi-
ence starvation in the Netherlands, in Greece, in eastern
Europe, and the Soviet Union and defeated Germany.
Food rationing was imposed everywhere. In the USA, it
started in 1942 and most food rationing ended in Decem-
ber 1945, but sugar rationing continued until June 1947.
My mother was a teenager during those years and expe-
rienced food rationing directly. In victorious Britain, food
rationing did not end until midnight on 4 July 1954, when
*Correspondence:
Barry Bogin
b.a.bogin@lboro.ac.uk
1 UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny
(CARTA), San Diego, USA
2 School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, UK
3 University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, USA
4 Diversity Scholars Network, Ann Arbor, USA
Page 2 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
restrictions on the sale and purchase of meat and bacon
were lifted. at was 9years after the end of the war. Pho-
tographs I saw in Life magazine and elsewhere (https://
www. magnu mphot os. com/ newsr oom/ socie ty/ david-
seymo ur- child ren- of- europe/) in the late 1950s and early
1960s depicted war refugees, holocaust survivors, and
US conscientious objectors to military service who “vol-
unteered” for e Minnesota Starvation Experiment [1],
www. bbc. co. uk/ news/ magaz ine- 25782 294). To my child
mind, these images evoked hunger as the people were thin
and seemed small. My mother had to be right—if those
people had more food to eat, then they would be bigger.
Young people do need food to grow. ey also require
adequate housing and sanitation, health care, education, and
many other decent standards of material and social living
conditions. ese needs have been widely promulgated in
writing since Sumerian Mesopotamia, about 3500 BP [2]. In
contrast, the essential emotional factors required for healthy
growth and development have often been downplayed or
ignored. One effort to promote emotional, as well as material
and social, needs for health is the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights [3]. e Declaration codified a
much-enlarged list of biocultural needs of all humans. Arti-
cle 25 of the Declaration makes two points that are especially
salient to the topic of love, hope, and human development:
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living ade-
quate for the health and well-being of himself and
of his family, including food, clothing, housing and
medical care and necessary social services, and the
right to security in the event of unemployment, sick-
ness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care
and assistance. All children, whether born in or out
of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
I have italicized the words of most salience. ese
words relate to the right to security, the right to a live-
lihood, and special care for mothers and children. Secu-
rity, livelihood, and special care are part and parcel of
love and hope. To be sure, many other emotional factors,
such as empathy, resilience, and self-efficacy, are equally
important for healthy human growth and development. It
may be argued that hope and love have an underlying pri-
macy and are required to promote these other emotional
traits. Perhaps this is why hope and love are so often cen-
tral themes of literature and art in many human societies.
Stories that associate hope with the crane bird (Grus
japonensis and related species) are one example. Crane
mythology can be found throughout history in cultures
around the world, from India to the Aegean, South Ara-
bia, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and North America.
In Japan, the crane is one of the mystical or holy creatures
and symbolizes good fortune, longevity, peace, and hope.
e crane features in traditional Japanese art, dance, and
origami (paper folding, Fig.1). An ancient Japanese legend
promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes
Fig. 1 On the left, Crane, eighteenth century, by Mitsusuke (1675–1710), National Museum in Kraków. The author died in 1710, so this work is in the
public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer. Top right,
Crane dance of the Ainu women, northern Hokkaidō, Japan. Photographer Arnold Genthe, 1869–1942, created/published 1908, Digital Id, agc a05214
https:// hdl. loc. gov/ loc. pnp/ agc. 7a052 14. No known restrictions on publication. Bottom right, Cranes folded in origami paper. Artist Laitche, created:
18 December 2007. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Laitche. This applies worldwide. In some countries, this may
not be legally possible; if so, Laitche grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are
required by law
Page 3 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
will be granted a wish by a crane. After World War II, the
crane came to symbolize hope for peace and the innocent
victims of war through the story of schoolgirl Sadako Sasaki
(佐々木 禎子 7 January 1943—25 October 1955) and
her thousand origami cranes. Sadako was a victim of the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the USA.
She was 2years of age when the bombs were dropped and
was severely irradiated. Suffering from leukemia because of
the atomic radiation and knowing she was dying, Sadako
undertook to make a thousand origami cranes before her
death. Following her diagnosis, she survived for another
10years, becoming one of the most widely known hibaku-
sha (被爆者 or 被曝者)—a Japanese term meaning “bomb-
affected person.” She is remembered through the story of
the more than one thousand origami cranes she folded
before her death. Sadako’s brother reports that she folded at
least 1300 cranes. After her death, she became internation-
ally recognized as a symbol of the innocent victims of war
and remains a heroine to many Japanese girls [4].
e cultural symbolism of hope played an important
social role in late nineteenth century Britain. In European
Christian theology, hope is traditionally considered to be
a virtue associated with the grace of God. Hope was “nat-
urally" bestowed upon people rather than being earned
by work or self-improvement. European artists followed
the Greco-Roman tradition of representing hope in the
personification of young woman.
e impact of industrialization, urbanization, military
conflict, civil wars, and revolutionary movements across
Europe, combined with laissez-faire capitalism and envi-
ronmental degradation, during the 1800s caused social
upheaval and economic instability. ese factors and
others led to the long depression or great depression of
1873–1896. is depression had worldwide effects with
the greatest harmful impacts in North America and
Western Europe, as measured by downturns in the rate of
growth of industrial productivity [5]. Productivity in the
USA declined by 24% and by 43% in Britain with both the
industrial and agricultural sectors suffering. ere was
unemployment and underemployment, and increased
poverty across the British Isles, which then included Ire-
land. e Bank of England kept interest rates as high as
9% in the 1870s. In 1878, the City of Glasgow Bank in
Scotland collapsed, and in 1879, there was famine for
thousands of Irish tenant farmers due the high rents and
fall in agricultural prices. In 1870, 97% of all Irish farm-
ers were tenants and many were evicted because they
could not pay rents. is crisis and the suffering it caused
launched the Irish Land War in 1879, which resulted
in the reforming Irish Land Acts [6, 7]. Even these acts
could not prevent escalating insecurity, violence, hatred,
and fear that led, ultimately, to revolution and Irish inde-
pendence from British rule in 1922.
e long depression induced hardships physically (fam-
ine, illness, violence, etc.) and harmed the Social-Eco-
nomic-Political-Emotional (SEPE) well-being of people
globally. Other research has established that SEPE fac-
tors are associated strongly with amounts and rates of
human growth and maturation [8, 9]. SEPE effects dur-
ing the long depression were no exception. is may be
seen in the changes of height of adult men born before,
during, and after the long depression (Fig.2). In the USA,
adult height declines for men born throughout the period
of ~ 1870–1885. In Britain (United Kingdom), heights on
average stagnate during the same period (slight increase
followed by slight decrease). In both countries, after 1885,
there is a relatively steep increase in average male heights
with each succeeding year of birth. Nearly a century later,
there was a decline in height in the 1970s, likely associ-
ated with economic recession, social insecurity, fear, and
other harmful SEPE factors. e 1973 oil crisis led to the
decline of traditional British industries. Inflation in the
UK spiked, rising from 9.2% in September 1973 to 12.9%
in March 1974, and unemployment also climbed sharply.
e government enacted a policy to ration electricity and
even so there were frequent power cuts. Another policy
enforced a 3-day working week.
In contrast, average adult heights of Italian and Japa-
nese men increased throughout the birth years of 1870–
1885. Italy also suffered during the long depression, but
the Italian industrial production and Italian average
height were very low compared to the USA and Britain.
Due to these factors, perhaps, the long depression had
no noticeably negative effect on Italian height growth.
e trend in male height for Japan is documented only
from the year 1880. e effect of the long depression on
the Japanese economy was marginal compared with the
other countries, as production dropped by only 8% in
the period 1873–1896 [10]. e height of men is stable
through 1885 and then begins to increase at a rate that
is remarkably similar to that of the UK, USA, and Italy,
despite the fact that Japanese heights are much shorter
in the 1880s. Further discussion of the changes in height
by year of birth of men in Japan, Italy, USA, and Britain
is given below in the section titled “Secular trends in
growth and hope.”
Harmful SEPE conditions destroy hope andreduce physical
growth
e social-economic-political turmoil of the long depres-
sion provoked emotional responses in the population
of Britain. Many people began to question the notion
of progress, the existence of God and the virtue of hope
[11]. New schools of philosophy, especially those based
on the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, saw hope as a
negative attribute that encouraged humanity to waste
Page 4 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
energies on futile efforts. Even before the long depres-
sion of 1873–1896, there was rapid and pernicious social
and environmental deterioration in British cities and the
countryside [12]. ere is evidence that the growth of
children suffered. As early as the 1830s Edwin Chadwick
(b.1800—d. 1890) published data on growth and health
of factory children that helped change laws regarding
minimum age and working conditions for children. Some
of these data are reproduced in Fig.3, which compares
the average height deficit of the English factory children
against the international reference data for stature pub-
lished by the United States National Center for Health
Statistics (NCHS) [13]. In this figure, the “0” line rep-
resents the 50th percentile height (the “average”) of the
reference population. e factory children were 16.3
to 23.5cm shorter than the 50th percentile of the same
aged children in the USA, or England, in the 1970s. Even
worse, the factory children were 7.9 to 11.4 cm below
the 5th percentile of the NCHS references. In a group of
children, an average height below the 5th percentile is an
indication of major growth delay and stunting, meaning
very low body length-for-age. is magnitude of stunt-
ing is usually seen only in children with serious physical/
emotional pathology.
Health and nutritional conditions for the factory chil-
dren were very poor and this undoubtable reduced their
growth, but a lack of love by their society and feelings of
hopelessness likely further depressed growth. In his 1842
Report on the sanitary conditions of the labouring popu-
lation of Great Britain, Chadwick found that there was
a link between poor living standards, the spread of dis-
ease, feelings of hopelessness, and poor physical growth.
He reported that unsanitary conditions in Britain’s urban
slums, into which rural peoples had been forced to
migrate due to evictions from their homesteads, had a
demoralizing effect on the families affected [15]. e loss
of hope in these families was felt by the children, and this
further stunted their growth.
The capacity ofartworks toarouse emotions
e artist George Frederic Watts (1817—1904) responded
to the demoralizing SEPE conditions of the long depres-
sion. Watts produced a series of paintings designed to
promote happiness, the most notable was titled hope
(Fig.4). Some art historians report that Watts felt that the
encroaching mechanization of daily life, and the focus on
material prosperity to Britain’s increasingly dominant mid-
dle class, were making modern life soulless. A personal
Fig. 2 Average height in centimeters of men by year of birth, 1810 to 1980. The data were derived from historical records of the heights of soldiers,
conscripts, prisoners, and others. The gray rectangle denotes the time of the long depression of 1873–1896 in the USA and Western Europe. Source
of image: https:// ourwo rldin data. org/ graph er/ avera ge- height- of- men- for- selec ted- count ries? count ry= GBR~ITA~USA~JPN. Data source: Human
Height, University of Tübingen, 2015, Link: https:// uni- tuebi ngen. de/ fakul taeten/ wirts chafts- und- sozia lwiss ensch aftli che- fakul taet/ faech er/ fachb
ereich- wirts chaft swiss ensch aft/ wirts chaft swiss ensch aft/ lehrs tuehle/ volks wirts chaft slehre/ wirts chaft sgesc hichte/ forsc hung/ data- hub- height. html.
Retrieved: 26 March 2023
Page 5 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
tragedy also impacted Watts. In late 1885, his adopted
daughter Blanche Clogstoun lost her infant daughter Isa-
bel to illness. Watts wrote to a friend, “I see nothing but
uncertainty, contention, conflict, beliefs unsettled and
nothing established in place of them” [10, p. 70]. Perhaps
to counteract his despair, Watts set out to reimagine the
depiction of hope. His first hope canvas was completed in
1886 and several versions followed over the next decade.
e British public reacted favorably, and many cheaply
printed copies were sold immediately. Later, higher quality
reproductions were available, and these sold well.
e theme of hope resonated in British and then Amer-
ican society throughout the next century. Watt’s compo-
sition of “hope” influenced several other artists, including
Pablo Picasso (e.g., e Old Guitarist, painted 1903–04),
poets, and a 1922 American film based on the imagined
origins of Watts’ hope painting (sic, “based on a true
story…”). In 1954, Percy Collick, a British trade union-
ist and Labour MP, urged “Labour stalwarts” to attend
an exhibition of the hope painting because that painting
“renewed faith and hope.” Collick’s remarks came after
a recent meeting with a Viennese Jewish woman who
endured concentration camps and “the terrors of the
Nazi War” (quoted in [11]). In 1959, Martin Luther King
Jr. delivered his Shattered Dreams sermon. In the ser-
mon, King wrote, “ere is much truth in George Fred-
erick Watts’ imaginative portrayal of hope in his picture
entitled Hope. He depicts hope as seated atop our planet,
but her head is sadly bowed and her fingers are plucking
one unbroken harp string. Who has not had to face the
agony of blasted hopes and shattered dreams?” [16].
Fig. 3 Height of English factory children in 1833 compared with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) references. The heights
of the factory children are shown as deficits, in cm, to both the 50th percentile and the 5th percentile of the NCHS references. Original figure by B
Bogin, first appeared in Bogin (2021), based on Chadwick’s data as published by Tanner [14]
Fig. 4 Hope by George Frederic Watts (1885) the Watts Gallery,
Compton, Surrey. Public Domain. A blindfolded female figure sits
on a globe, playing a lyre that has only a single string remaining.
The background is indistinct but has one shining star (the star
above Hope’s shoulder, enlarge an online image e.g., https:// en. wikip
edia. org/ wiki/ George_ Frede ric_ Watts#/ media/ File: Assis tants_ and_
George_ Frede ric_ Watts_-_ Hope_-_ Google_ Art_ Proje ct. jpg)
Page 6 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
In the late 1980s, another American minister, Jeremiah
Wright, attended a lecture by Frederick G. Sampson in
Richmond, Virginia, on the George Frederic Watts’ paint-
ing Hope. e lecture inspired Wright to give a sermon
in 1990 based on the painting. Wright’s sermon included,
“Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours.
Have the audacity to hope for that home of yours.
Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours.
Whatever it is you’ve been praying for, keep on pray-
ing, and you may find, like my grandmother sings,
’ere’s a bright side somewhere; there is a bright
side somewhere. Don’t you rest until you find it, for
there is a bright side somewhere” [17].
e “bright side” is the one shining star on the back-
ground of the Hope painting.
A law student named Barack Obama was in the audi-
ence the day of Wright’s sermon. As the presidential can-
didate in 2004, Obama delivered his campaign address
and changed Wright’s “Audacity to hope” to “Audacity of
hope.” is became the title of Obama’s second book of
memoirs [18]. e “Audacity of Hope” also represented
Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign via his “Hope
poster” (Fig.5).
Hope andlove are thefundamental basis ofhuman
biocultural reproduction
All human beings, especially, pregnant women, moth-
ers, and young people, need the type of support and care
that comes from human systems of healthy biocultural
reproduction. e concept of biocutural reproduction
is defined as, “…the set of marriage and kinship-based
rules for extra-maternal cooperation in the produc-
tion, feeding and care of offspring” [19]. is definition
of extended family care of women and their offspring
applied to all people during the 99% of human history
when our ancestors lived in anthropologically traditional
societies, that is, societies based on economies of forag-
ing, horticulture, pastoralism, and pre-industrial farming.
Post-industrial and urbanized societies also need healthy
biocultural reproduction and assure this via newer forms
of assistance from extended family, friendships, paid or
unpaid carers, and governmental institutions (schools,
health care systems, social care systems, etc.). In both
traditional and modern post-industrial societies, “it takes
a village to raise a child” (a traditional African prov-
erb). People need the physical and emotional security of
knowing that they will have a diet that meets all nutrient
requirements, the security of good water, sanitation and
protection from infection, and the security of other mate-
rial safeguards such as adequate housing and education.
ese are the minimal requirements for survival. But
these alone do not make for a healthy, well-grown person.
Infants lacking social interaction and love do not grow
well physically and may die, even when given all their
physical necessities (see below for evidence).
Human biocultural reproduction is successful only
with true well-being, and this happens when young peo-
ple have hope. Hope comes from opportunities to par-
ticipate in healthy social and community environments,
when the young are part of systems of meaningful infor-
mal and formal education, and when the young and their
families have realistic expectations for a stable, produc-
tive, and meaningful livelihoods. e importance of live-
lihood was mentioned previously in this review as Point
1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Liveli-
hood is essential for hope. is was emphasized by Klaus
Toepfer when he was Executive Director of the United
Nations Environment Programme. Toepfer stated in
2001 that people have the, “…basic rights to life, health,
adequate food and housing, and traditional livelihood
and culture” [20]. e UN does not define “livelihood.” A
narrow definition of “livelihood” is the work people do to
Fig. 5 Barak Obama Presidential campaign poster, 2008. Obama
Poster Art by Shepard Fairey, based on a photo taken by Mannie
Garcia for Associated Press. Image from https:// en. wikip edia. org/ wiki/
File: Barack_ Obama_ Hope_ poster. jpg. Reprinted under the Fair Use
statures of United States copyright law
Page 7 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
secure an income and physical necessities. In the social
sciences, the concept of livelihood extends to include
social, cultural, and emotional needs. One biocultural
definition of “livelihood” is, “…the command an individ-
ual, family, or other social group has over an income and/
or bundles of resources that can be used or exchanged to
satisfy its needs. is may involve information, cultural
knowledge, social networks and legal rights as well as
tools, land and other physical resources” [21]. Anthro-
pologists understand that a livelihood is not only a way
to make a living—it is a way to make living meaningful.
Indian anthropologist Rashmi Rekha Tripathy reviewed
research on the social science concept of “livelihood”
and wrote, “…there is a moral or cultural dimension to
livelihood as well as a material dimension: livelihood
involves not simply the satisfaction of material needs it
also involves the satisfaction of emotional, spiritual and
intellectual needs” [20, p. 1]. Tripathy conducted field-
work among Juang tribal agriculturalists in Odisha State,
India. Tripathy found that changes to the means of finan-
cial livelihood due to migration from the village to urban
areas not only impacted the people’s economic status but
also their socio-cultural life, including their family and
kinship networks, religious rituals and festivals, and the
marriage system. ese are part of the definition of bio-
cultural reproduction given above. Healthy environments
for biocultural reproduction and livelihoods ensure emo-
tional security and provide hope to people as much as
they provide physical needs.
Healthy human growth isa“love story”
Readers of this article likely have received and given
much love during their lives. At the 2009 symposium,
“Origins of Altruism and Cooperation,” Walter Gold-
schmidt is quoted as stating, “You talk about coopera-
tion and altruism but what you really mean is LOVE. We
shouldn’t be afraid to use the word LOVE. at is what
makes us truly human” (from the dedication to the book
from the symposium [22]. “Love” and “hope” have many
meanings, and I focus only on those that relate to biocul-
tural reproduction and human growth. e primatolo-
gist Allison Jolly wrote that humans have “,,,few, much
loved offspring…” [23]. “Love” in this context refers to
the prolonged care that primate mothers lavish on their
offspring. A specifically human expression of love and
hope is Robert LeVine’s [22, 23] proposal that all human
parents have a universal evolutionary hierarchy of goals
for their offspring.LeVine’s parental love and hope mani-
fests as two goals: (1) encourage the survival and the
health of offspring and (2) develop offspring into self-
supporting adults with culturally specific and acceptable
beliefs and behavioral norms. Many anthropologists and
others have elaborated on Jolly’s and LeVine’s version of
love and hope [24–28]. In particular, Sarah Hrdy builds
on Goldschmidt’s work and shows that love and hope
manifest in the emotional and physical commitment that
many people must make to successfully support a preg-
nant woman, her infant, and her older children, juveniles,
and adolescents. Goldschmidt called the need for this
commitment “affect hunger,” which is, “…rooted in biol-
ogy and emerges with culture” [27 (Goldschmidt, 2006,
p. 141]. To satisfy our affect hunger, we humans must
have nurturant love from others to complete our physical
development and provide the hope needed to bring us to
culture. Infants and children deprived of nurturant love
and hope often die and those surviving do not grow well
in body or brain. ey never become healthy, cultural
persons.
A lack oflove andhope isdeadly
Psychosocial short stature is a well-studied condition that
shows how the neuroendocrine system mediates the rela-
tionship between psychological-emotional factors and
physical growth. Psychosocial short stature is a clinical
condition of slow growth or growth failure between birth
and adulthood that cannot be ascribed to an organic
problem with the person, but rather to behavioral distur-
bance and emotional stress in the environment in which
she/he lives. Another symptom is delayed puberty. A
diagnosis of psychosocial short statue is confirmed when
the infant, child, or youngster is removed from that envi-
ronment and growth, development, and maturation are
spontaneously restored [29, 30]. Saenger and colleagues
[31] showed that changes in growth rate of children with
psychosocial short stature are not associated with caloric
intake. Rather, many behavioral and emotional factors
can lead to psychosocial short stature, and a history of
abuse, neglect, and/or emotional deprivation is common.
e key proximate cause is hormonal. In a review of his
clinical experience with psychosocial short stature Rap-
paport [32] stated that “…the most consistent biologi-
cal finding was the decrease of circulating somatomedin
activity…”. Somatomedin is now called IGF-1 (insulin-like
growth factor-1). IGF-1 is the most potent endocrine
hormone for linear growth. Children suffering from
affective emotional deficiency and psychosocial short
stature may also have reductions and derangements in
the physiology of other neuroendocrine markers, such as
melatonin, serotonin, β-endorphins, and adrenocortico-
trophic hormone (ACTH). Derangement of tryptophan
metabolism (an essential amino acid) is also known [33].
Each of these are regulators of physical growth.
As early as the year 1701, there was clear evidence of
a relationship between the psychosocial environment
and human development. is evidence, published in
Page 8 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
Gerhardts Handbuch der Kinderkrankheiten (Gerhardt’s
Handbook of Pediatric Diseases) and reprinted by Peiper
in 1955 [34], consisted of the percentage of infants admit-
ted to foundling homes who died while in care. e data
are reproduced here in Table1 in descending order of the
percentage of infants dying. In Irkustk, Siberia, Russia,
100% of infants entering the foundling home died, but
no date was given by Peiper. In Dublin, Ireland, for nearly
all the eighteenth century, 98% of infants died in the
foundling homes. e percentage of deaths decreased,
generally, over time, but remained 50% or higher except
for the cities of Prague and Bordeaux. ose two cities
had foundling homes and also placed some infants with
caregivers in the rural countryside. e Prague infants
seemed to fare worse there and the Bordeaux infants
slightly better. Peiper’s book contains several comments
on the “clean conditions” and “good diet” provided in the
foundling homes, nevertheless so many of the infants
died. A lack of adequate psychosocial stimulation, to
use the WHO phrase, or more simply put, a lack of love,
seems to have been a contributing factor to the deaths.
In the USA, one of the first observations of found-
ling home deaths was made by Harry Chapin in 1915.
Chapin, a physician, visited 10 orphanages and hospitals
in the New York City region that cared for abandoned
infants. ese institutions provided an acceptable level
of care in terms of hygiene and feeding, yet in 9 of the
10 orphanages all the infants under 2years old died. In
1942, Harry Bakwin proposed that the cause of this
extraordinary mortality was emotional deprivation. In
the first half of the twentieth century, the medical com-
munity in the USA believed that “excessive” physical con-
tact of an infant and its caregivers was deleterious. In the
orphanages and hospitals, where the staff were likely to
be overburdened with many infants, physical contact was
reduced to a minimum. Bakwin believed that the dep-
rivation of physical contact led to a negative emotional
state, growth failure, and death.
René Spitz (1887—1974) carefully investigated the
causes of poor growth experienced by emotionally dis-
turbed infants and children [35]. His studies focused
on orphans confined to foundling homes and other
institutions. Spitz quoted a diary entry of a Span-
ish Bishop who wrote in the year 1760, “En la Casa de
Niños Expositos el niño se va poniendo triste y muchos
de ellos mueren de tristeza” [In the Children’s Home,
the child becomes sad and many of them die of sad-
ness]. Spitz compared the development of infants in one
foundling home with infants raised in the nursery of a
penal institution for delinquent girls. Inmates of the lat-
ter facility were the natural mothers of the infants. Both
institutions provided an acceptable standard of hous-
ing, sanitation, medical care, and diet for the infants.
e children in the penal nursery had more physical and
social stimulation, due to their full-time care by their
own mothers, or full-time substitutes. In the found-
ling home, care was provided by one nurse, and infants
were confined to their cribs, without human contact, for
most of the day. Over the 2years of study Spitz found
that the foundling home children became progressively
delayed in their physical and mental development com-
pared with the nursery infants and a control group of
home-reared infants. At about age 3years, the found-
ling home children had average heights and weights
expected for children aged 1.5years. e developmental
status of the nursery infants did not differ significantly
from a control group of infants raised at home. Moreo-
ver, the mortality rate for infants in the foundling home
was 37%, while in the nursery group, no child had died.
Spitz used the term “hospitalism” to describe the syn-
drome of poor physical and mental development and
high mortality experienced by institutionalized chil-
dren. It took some time for Spitz’s research to make a
significant impact, but eventually a new medical para-
digm for infant and childcare was proposed by pediatri-
cians. By the 1950s, Benjamin Spock, the author of an
immensely popular “baby care book,” advised parents to
hold and cuddle their infants in ways that had been con-
sidered indulgent just a few years earlier.
Table 1 Infants dying in foundling homes in European cities
or nations with two cases of deaths to infants placed into care
homes in the countryside. Data from [34]
City or country Year Percent dying
Irkutsk No date given 100
Dublin I701–1797 98
Petersburg 1772–1784 85
Brussels 1811 79
Petersburg 1785–1797 76
Vienna 1811 72
Paris 1780 69
Paris 1817 67
Moscow 1822–1831 66
Gent 1823–1833 62
Dijon 1838–1845 61
Mons 1823–1833 57
Brussels 1817 56
Belgium 1823–1833 54
Petersburg 1830–1833 51
France 1838–1875 50
Prague 1865 20
Infants placed in the countryside 35
Bordeaux 1850–1861 18
Infants placed in the countryside 15
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Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
e critical importance of physical contact in early
development was the focus of the famous experimental
studies conducted by Harry Harlow (1905–1981) and
his colleagues [36, 37]. Harlow established several types
of rearing environments for rhesus monkeys living in a
laboratory. Some infants were raised by their mothers,
and other infants were separated from their mothers, but
given access to inanimate surrogates. One type of surro-
gate was a wire frame with a bottle and nipple positioned
so that the infant monkey could cling to the wire and
feed. Another type of surrogate was a wire frame covered
with a soft textured cloth. Infant monkeys preferred to
cling to the soft cloth surrogate and would even give up
feeding for the opportunity to touch and caress the cloth.
Behavioral and emotional development was impaired in
the monkeys exposed to both types of surrogates, and the
infant monkeys had elevated stress hormone levels, but
the impairment was more severe in those with wire-only
rather than cloth covered surrogates.
e implications of the research by Spitz and Harlow
were applied by Tiffany Field (b. 1942) to the needs of
preterm infants. Many preterm infants must be given
extraordinary medical care to survive. Poor growth
and development of those infants that did survive was
a common outcome. Often, the medical care required
placement in an incubator that isolated the infant from
physical contact with the mother or other caregivers.
Field conducted a series of experiments which showed
that tactile stimulation could ameliorate much of the
poor growth and development. e stimulation could
be provided by placing an infant confined to an incuba-
tor on a sheepskin fur pad or by allowing the infant to
be fondled through “glove hole” access into the incubator.
As little as 15min of gloved touch resulted in 50% faster
rates of growth in the isolated infant [38, 39].
What ismore important, food orlove?
Green and colleagues [40] reviewed the literature relat-
ing to psychosocial short stature, with an aim toward
evaluating the role that nutrition and endocrine factors
play in the etiology of the disease. It was found that most
cases of growth failure in infants (birth to 36months)
were due to malnutrition; these infants were usually
denied food by their emotionally disturbed parents or
caregivers. Children over 36months of age were usually
not clinically malnourished. Moreover, it was commonly
found that both GH (growth hormone) and IGF-1 lev-
els were significantly depressed in these older children.
Malnutrition, in contrast, is associated with low levels
of serum IGF-1 and abnormally high secretion of GH,
so the endocrine profile of the children did not fit with
starvation as the cause of their growth failure. Green
and colleagues accounted for the growth disturbance
in the children with a neuroendocrine hypothesis. ey
built on the work of Patton and Gardner [41], who pro-
posed that emotional stress may affect some of the higher
brain centers, particularly the amygdala and limbic cor-
tex, which are known to control the emotions. Nerve
impulses from these brain centers may pass to the hypo-
thalamus where they are transduced into neuroendocrine
messages that may affect the production and release of
hypothalamic hormones. In this manner, psychological
disturbances in the child might be translated into a cutoff
of GHRF (growth hormone releasing factor) in the hypo-
thalamus, a halt in GH secretion from the pituitary, and
depressed levels of IGF-1 secretion from the body tissues.
Neuroendocrine mechanisms for the relationship
between emotional stimulation, growth, and health were
confirmed by both experimental studies with nonhu-
man animals and in clinical human studies. In a labora-
tory experiment, Meaney and colleagues [42] compared
infant rats that were licked by their mothers with infant
rats who were not licked. e licked infants had lower
levels of so called “stress hormones,” the glucocorticoids
such as cortisol, high levels of GH, high growth rates, and
even higher scores on tests of learning. In later research,
Meaney and colleagues [43] reported direct pathways
between physical stress, the release of glucocorticoid
hormones, and several central nervous system neuro-
transmitters which regulate the activity of the hypothala-
mus and pituitary in humans as well as rats.
In clinical human studies, Skuse and colleagues [44]
reported on a group of 29 children with psychoso-
cial short stature and GH insufficiency accompanied
with hyperphagia, that is, an excessive intake of food.
e researchers found that when these children were
removed from their stressful home circumstances, the
GH levels spontaneously returned to normal and the
hyperphagia ended. Clearly, none of these children was
denied food, but they were denied proper emotional care
and their growth suffered. Studies with infants and chil-
dren placed into foster care also find little evidence for
a nutritional cause for growth retardation. ese foster-
care studies do find that one of the first physical changes
that occurs with placement is an increased rate of growth
in height and weight. Wyatt and colleagues [45] pointed
out that most children placed into foster care do not
show signs of overt clinical psychosocial short stature or
sub-nutrition. Even so, Wyatt and colleagues’ study of 45
apparently healthy and well-nourished infants and chil-
dren aged 1.5–6years placed into foster care found more
than half experienced clinically and statistically signifi-
cant catch-up growth in height following placement. is
foster-care study shows that even when stature, weight,
and food intake appear to be normal, a stressful home
environment may be retarding growth. An alternative is
Page 10 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
also possible, placement into a loving and hopeful home
environment stimulates growth.
ere are more recent reports of the harmful growth
and development consequences of institutional depri-
vation and emotional neglect/abuse at home, with the
dreadful experiences of Romanian orphans being nota-
ble [46–48]. ese orphans suffered severe psychosocial
deprivation prior to adoption, due to the social-eco-
nomic-political environment imposed under the regime
of dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu between 1965 and 1989.
Edmund Sonuga-Barke and colleagues have shown that
the negative impacts on the orphans included derange-
ments of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis
and stress hormone activity [48]. e association of phys-
ical growth with the HPA axis and emotional stress was
discussed above.
Even 20years after adoption into British families pro-
viding all needed care and love, the former orphans
showed evidence of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal
axis dysregulation and impaired neurodevelopmen-
tal and mental health trajectories. In terms of physical
growth, the former orphans did show remarkable catch-
up growth in height in the first year after adoption, but
had slow growth during the rest of their childhood and
adolescence. e former orphans had permanent growth
stunting in adulthood due largely to that slow growth
combined with an early onset of puberty and early com-
pletion of skeletal growth. ese consequences were
especially severe in girls.
A case study, reported by Magner and colleagues
[49], provides a final example of the powerful interplay
between emotions and growth. e study is of a 12-year-
old boy who suffered growth retardation and delayed
sexual maturation following an emotional trauma. e
trauma was provoked by an argument between the boy
and his stepfather, with whom the boy had a warm rela-
tionship. After the argument, the boy verbalized a wish
for his stepfather’s death, and the next day the man
seriously injured himself falling from a roof. e hos-
pital where the man was recovering sent an erroneous
“notice of death” letter to the family’s home which the
boy received and read while at home alone. ough the
man eventually recovered, the boy began a self-imposed
period of food refusal and vomiting. He dropped from
34 to 25 kg in 5 months. At age 15years, following
periods of hospitalization, drug treatment, and coun-
seling his eating behavior returned to normal. But, his
growth did not, and at age 17years, he had the height
of a normal child of 11.3years, a bone age of 13 “years,”
and was, essentially, prepubertal in physical appear-
ance. He was given treatment with growth hormone at
age 19.3years, and between ages 20 and 21years expe-
rienced a growth spurt and sexual maturation. Growth
in height continued until age 25years, when the young
man reached 171cm. e authors of this report state
that in this patient, an acute, “…psychic trauma induced
a deranged hormonal state that persisted for several
years” (p. 741). ough malnutrition and drug treat-
ments in the 3years following the trauma may have also
upset the hormonal balance, the boy was behaviorally
normal and drug-free for about 5years before treatment
with GH returned his growth and maturation to normal.
is case and the others previously discussed exemplify
the intimate and powerful influence that emotional fac-
tors, such as love, fear, guilt, and hopelessness can have
on the human neuroendocrine system and the pattern
of human growth.
Can more love andhope make you taller?
e historical events, human physiological research, and
clinical case studies reviewed here show that a lack of
love and hope can slow skeletal growth, delay maturation,
and even be deadly. e following is evidence that more
love and hope can promote greater height and healthier
maturation and reduce infant/child mortality.
Migrants, adoptees, andconquerors—socially upgrading
andgrowing taller
Of particular interest are migrants who escape from poor
or dangerous living conditions to find more prosperous
general living and socio-economic conditions, usually
with improvements in nutrition, health, housing, water,
and sanitation [50]. ese migrants may be classified as
“social upgraders” when successfully integrating into the
new host population. Adoptees and refugees from lower-
income nations to the high-income nations belong to this
group. In contrast, there are “social downgraders,” such as
war refugees who are forced into camps or slums. e liv-
ing conditions of these social downgraders are often ter-
rible and the growth and development of their offspring
suffers [51], often due to gross malnutrition and rampant
infections. Social downgraders also suffer from social-
emotional abuse that leads to mental health difficulties,
including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, self-
harm, sleep disturbance, and behavioral difficulties [52].
e daily living conditions in camps and slums impose
psychological stressors, such as lack of space and control,
violence, feelings of inadequacy, and hopelessness. Social
downgraders in the context of migration are not further
discussed here, as the harmful consequences of hopeless-
ness on human physical growth were detailed above.
Another group of interest that is considered here con-
sists of migrants who arrive in a new place as invaders,
colonial rulers, and other types of political, economic, or
psychological oppressors who dominate their host popu-
lations. ese migrants may be classified as “conquerors.”
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Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
To compare the effects of being a social upgrader or con-
queror, it is useful to test two hypotheses:
1. Cultural and structural assimilation by “social
upgrading” migrants into their new host population
is accompanied by adjustments in height of their
growing offspring toward the median height of the
hosts.
2. Migrants using violent, oppressive, or military and
colonial conquest is accompanied by height growth
of their offspring that significantly surpasses the
median height of both the conquered population and
the population of origin.
Maya refugees from Guatemala to the USA are a test
of the first of these hypotheses. A marked improvement
in height of children who migrated to the USA may be
seen in Fig. 6. e group of children and adolescents
aged 5–17years (n = 1897) who were born and raised in
Guatemala, measured in 1998, had a mean height − 2.54
z scores below WHO standard/reference [53]. e mean
height of children and adolescents aged 5–12.99 years
(n = 245), most born in Guatemala and raised in Florida
and in Los Angeles, California, measured in 1992, was
–1.15 z scores. Finally, the mean height of children and
adolescents aged 5–12.99years (n = 444), most born and
raised in Florida and Los Angeles, measured in 2000, was
only − 0.53 z scores below WHO standard/reference. e
figure not only shows that migration of the families to
the USA affected the mean values of height, but also that
migration influenced the entire range of the distribution.
e US-born group measured in 2000 increased in height
by more than 10cm within a single generation, but the
height difference between the tallest and the shortest
within the group remained unchanged as compared with
sedentes in Guatemala and those born in Guatemala and
migrating in the first months or years after birth. Better
nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and
medical care certainly account for some of the height
increase of US-born Maya. But, if these were the only
explanations, then we would expect that the lower tail of
the distribution, those most suffering from malnutrition,
etc., would show the greatest increase in height. is is
not the case. Height distributions remain virtually scale
invariant, and they simply shift to the right, as a whole.
As explained elsewhere [2, 9], a civil war in Guatemala
forced most of the Maya families to migrate. Most adult
Maya migrants to the USA aspired to maintain cultural
identity rooted in their formative experiences in rural
Guatemala, such as Maya language. Maya refugee chil-
dren, on the other hand, were born or raised in the USA
and most learned both English and Spanish simultane-
ously, fewer of the refugee children learned their Maya
language. While Maya values were still strongly empha-
sized at home, children acquired non-Maya cultural val-
ues and behaviors on the streets and in the schools. It is
likely that Maya parents loved their children in both Gua-
temala and the USA, but the migrants had more hope for
Fig. 6 Height distribution in z scores of Maya children and juveniles aged 5–17 years old raised in Guatemala (N = 1897) in 1998, and in two
US locations in 1992 (N = 245) and in 2000 (N = 444). The width of the three distributions is almost identical despite the much shorter height
of the Guatemala-raised sample
Page 12 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
a better life now and in the future. e increase in height
of these socially upgrading and more hopeful children of
immigrants moved them closer to the height distribution
of their hosts, that is, European-Americans and African-
Americans. But the first-generation of Maya-Americans
were still part of a migrant community with its own SEPE
ecology and still tended to cluster in height. at cluster-
ing may explain both their height distribution and their
shorter-than-the-reference average height.
Additional examples of a height increase for socially
upgrading and more hopeful children of immigrants, for
example, from Bangladesh to the UK and from Japan to
Hawaii and California, are described by Bogin and col-
leagues [54].
A relatively new type of migrant are international adop-
tees (IAs) from low-income countries, adopted by fami-
lies in high-income countries. Similar to the Romanian
orphans discussed above, many of the IAs were institu-
tionalized or placed in foster care prior to adoption. ey
may have been stunted, wasted, and emotionally scarred
by their experiences with maltreating families or neglect-
ing orphanages [55]. At the time of placement with their
new families, most of these IAs with delays in physical
growth, motor development, and cognitive skills show
rapid catch-up of the delays. is was the case for the
Romanian adoptees. Some part of the catch-up is cer-
tainly due to better nutrition and health care. Another
part of the catch-up may be associated with the new
social networks of improved emotional care and the host
society’s target for taller average height and greater cog-
nitive competences. While the Romanian case shows that
the catch-up may be limited and without improvement in
adulthood, most other studies of IAs indicate statistically
and biologically that the early gains in height and cogni-
tion persist into adulthood [54].
Many additional examples of both IAs and adoptees
within a nation or community show that adoption is one
of the most effective interventions to overcome previous
growth stunting and developmental delays. Adoption is
certainly more effective than any of the nutrition sup-
plementation, WASH, or education interventions tried
in the countries/communities of origin of the adoptees.
Adoption, just like the migration of Maya from Gua-
temala to the USA, places the adoptees in new social
networks and leads, in general, to positive community
effects and strategic growth adjustments on height, cog-
nition, and emotional well-being [56].
Community eects andstrategic growth
e community effects hypothesis posits that the attain-
ment of final height, weight, body composition, and body
proportions of individual people arises, in part, from the
influence of their bio-social-psychological proximity with
members within a social network. ese factors influ-
ence growth when the brain transduces SEPE factors in
the community environment into more-or-less neuroen-
docrine production of various growth regulating sub-
stances. Strategic growth may be defined as adjustments
to body size or rate of growth that are associated with
position in the social hierarchy. Strategic growth adjust-
ments are observed when groups of young people grow
larger body size or grow to adulthood at a faster rate to
achieve social and reproductive dominance [2, 56]. Stra-
tegic growth has been observed in cooperatively breeding
mammal species where reproduction is virtually limited
to the most dominant female and male individuals [57].
It is also observed in human social groups as part of bio-
cultural reproduction [58]. e catch-up growth expe-
rienced by social-upgrading migrants and adoptees are
examples of the process of strategic growth in new social-
emotional communities, as well as the effects of relief
from stress and hopelessness.
Military conquests are a form of migration and also a
powerful force influencing love and hope in a society. Fol-
lowing conquest both the vanquished and the conquerors
show evidence of community effects and strategic growth
changes. Conquerors form the dominant social strata,
and they usually take care to ensure that their offspring
maintain social dominance. ey do not integrate, but
rather impose their social networks on their subjects.
Colonial Europeans of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries were not only taller than their native subjects,
but also taller than their continental relatives in Europe.
White US Americans of the early-to-mid nineteenth cen-
tury surpassed white Europeans by several centimeters
[59]. By 1860, American White men averaged 174.1cm,
while adult men in England averaged 165.6 cm and
in Sweden and Norway men averaged 168.6 cm [60].
Greater height for colonists was also true for Dutch white
settlers of nineteenth-century South Africa [61] and Aus-
tralia [62].
Tall stature also prevailed in the children of colonial-
ists during the early twentieth century. Measurements of
Dutch children raised in a boarding school in Brastagi,
Indonesia, were made between 1926 and 1928 [63, 64].
ese Dutch children were similar in height with “tall”
US American children measured in 1924 and up to 15cm
taller than German children measured in 1922 or chil-
dren in Amsterdam measured in 1916 [54]. e Dutch
colonial children were, of course, very much taller than
indigenous Indonesian children. It is unlikely that the
greater stature of the Dutch colonists’ children was due
to better nutrition and health compared with their coun-
terparts in Europe. e wealthy of Europe could acquire
good diets and medical care. e burden of tropical
infections from microorganisms and parasites that are
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Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
considered responsible for poor growth in many tropi-
cal indigenous populations likely also affected the off-
spring of the new colonists, but these infections do not
exist in Europe. Instead, it is proposed that the greater
height of European colonists in America and in Indone-
sia are evidence in support of hypothesis 2 (given above).
e greater height of the colonial Europeans was in large
part due to their self-perception as the dominant social
class with a consequent competitive growth and strategic
growth adjustment toward greater average height. e
colonists and their children controlled the hope for a bet-
ter life now and in the future.
Secular trends ingrowth andhope
Human biologists and physiological anthropologists
define “secular trends” as the change in the mean size,
shape, or performance of individuals of a population from
one generation to the next. Such trends can be positive
(e.g., increasing size) or negative (e.g., decreasing size).
ese changes may be easy to measure, but what do secu-
lar trends mean? Many plausible and fanciful proposals
exist to explain secular changes. A few of these are as fol-
lows: (1) transportation technology such as bicycles and
railroads leading to genetic hybrid vigor as people from
formally isolated villages met, married, and produced
offspring; (2) changing climate and seasonal effects; (3)
the availability and price of sugar or other commodities
as a cheap form of food energy; (4) environmental toxi-
cants and endocrine disruptors, such as PCBs, which
may accelerate puberty; and (5) the development of pub-
lic utilities to provide heating—allows greater energy
investment in growth vs. keeping your body warm–and
artificial lighting–may stimulate growth, somehow. It is
also proposed that psychosocial changes in the family, in
schools, via media, etc., expose ever-younger children to
sexual stimulants that accelerate growth and maturation.
Each of these factors may play some small role, but it
is now well accepted that modifications of the social-eco-
nomic-political-emotional (SEPE) environment leading
to transformations in the quality of life are the principle
causes of secular changes in growth and maturation. e
quality of life may be measured by SEPE variables such
as education and literacy levels, food availability/market
prices, cost of living, real wages, gross domestic product
(GDP), social class and gender stratification/discrimina-
tion, rules for voting participation leading to democrati-
zation of society, and public expenditures on health. No
matter which measures are used, the feelings of safety,
security, and a hopefulness for the future are always
greater in those populations that have more, and a more
equal distribution, of these factors [65].
Human height almost always follows the upward trend
of physical well-being, emotional security, and hopeful
expectation of a better life. ese complex interact-
ing variables and their influence on physical growth are
discussed in detail, with supporting literature, in the
new edition of my book Patterns of Human Growth [2],
chapter7]. e causal relationship between better SEPE
environments and greater mean stature is so strong that
mean stature itself is used to characterize the SEPE envi-
ronments of historic and prehistoric populations before
the invention of statistics such as infant mortality rates
(IMRs), gross domestic product (GDP), literacy rates, or
cost of living indices. Some human biologists and econ-
omists call the relationship between the S and E (social
and economic) components of SEPE environment with
height the biological standard of living [66–68]. is is
a valid perspective, but far too narrow to appreciate the
important impact of the political and emotional compo-
nents that complete the SEPE model.
Pioneering researchers such as René Villermé (1782—
1863), Chadwick, Franz Boas (1858—1942) and others
from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries emphasized
the importance of the SEPE environment as the cause of
secular changes but could at best only correlate relation-
ships [2]. Today, we understand many, but not all, of the
ways that feelings of chronic stress, love, hope, and other
SEPE factors are transduced into neuroendocrine sub-
stances by the hypothalamus, the pituitary, the adrenals,
other endocrine organs, the skeleton, other tissues and
cells, and, even, mitochondria [69–79]. We understand
that SEPE factors can exert their influence on human biol-
ogy via the genome, the epigenome, the proteome, and the
metabolome [80–83]. We better understand, and can trace
some of the physiological pathways, from chronic expo-
sure to the SEPE “pollutants” of inequality and insecurity
to shorter stature, overweight/obesity, both early and late
maturation, and behavioral pathology in affected children
and adolescents [8, 9, 84, 85]. We appreciate how human
biology interacts with high levels of persistent violence to
create an ecology of fear and biocultural stress that inhibits
healthy growth and development for people of all income
levels [9].
We now have a physiological and anthropologi-
cal understanding of secular trends in stature, such as
those depicted in Fig. 2. Where there are declines in
adult height prior to 1885, there was also deterioration
of SEPE living conditions, related to unregulated indus-
trialization, urbanization, and rising inequality. Parental
love for children may not have diminished, but societal
“love” for children—in terms of social, educational, voca-
tional, and health support—may have diminished. ere
was also a loss of hope for a better life. Declines in soci-
etal love and in hope repressed growth in stature. Up-
turns in height reflect the restoration of hope, whether
by belief in an artist’s work or by measurable economic
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Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
and social improvement. Political change was also a fac-
tor. Despite all the environmental harm and economic
inequality inflicted by eighteenth and nineteenth century
laissez-faire capitalism in Europe and North America,
there was also a wave of revolution and civil war starting
in 1775 in America and then 1789 in France and contin-
uing to 1917 in Russia. e period 1848–1851 in Europe
was especially important as the revolutionary zeal
reached the countryside and influenced the peasants,
the landless farming tenants, and other low SEPE status
rural people [86]. Focusing on this revolutionary period
in European/North American history, my colleagues
Michael Hermanussen, Sergei Erofeev, and Christiane
Scheffler pointed to the associations between the new
revolutionary environment of SEPE factors in the cities
and the countryside with human physiology and evolu-
tionary biology by writing recently that the,
“…changes in in social and political values within
only a few decades, the striving for change and
economic supremacy, the pull for aggressive
behaviour not just of single persons, but of whole
populations – we may mention the political riots
and revolutions of that time – now interact with
the evolutionarily favoured and conserved neu-
roendocrine competence for adaptive develop-
mental plasticity. Modern westernised people
are competitive. The newly emerged values and
behaviours, the striving towards social status
and prestige has destabilised the previously rigid
feudal dominance hierarchies and conveyed for-
merly stationary social structures with accepted
cues predicting dominance and subordination,
into combative structure. The new structures
are seductive. They promise personal chances
to upgrade in social rank, even with the risk of
[there] being costly within group aggression. We
consider the rapid secular rise in average body
height of the European populations observed dur-
ing the late 19th and the early 20th century as a
result of socially induced permanent overstimula-
tion of the hypothalamic growth regulation” [79].
In their article, titled e socio-endocrine regulation
of human growth, Hermanussen and colleagues provide
the details of the probable pathways from revolutionary
changes in social values to hormonal regulation of the
skeletal growth (see their Fig. 1). Revolution instilled
hope for a better future and people literally grew toward
that hopeful future for themselves and their children.
The secular trend inJapan
ere was also revolution and social change in Japan in the
nineteenth century. e Tokugawa Shogunate had, in 1854,
opened Japan to Western commerce and influence. e
Tokugawa Shogunate was ruled by military leaders but was
overthrown in 1868 and was followed by a government
formed by politicians, called the Meiji government. With
the new policies of the Meiji government the process of
Japanese integration with Western style social-economic-
political, and perhaps emotional values accelerated. One of
the biggest impacts on the economy that the Meiji period
brought was the end of the feudal system. According to an
anonymous author of the Wikipedia page https:// en. wikip
edia. org/ wiki/ Econo mic_ histo ry_ of_ Japan,
“In the Meiji period, leaders inaugurated new, West-
ern-based education systems for all young people,
sent thousands of students to the United States and
Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to
teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and
foreign languages in Japan. e government also
built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated
a land reform program to prepare the country for
further development … With a more educated popu-
lation, Japan’s industrial sector grew significantly.
Implementing the Western ideal of capitalism into
the development of technology and applying it to
their military helped make Japan into both a milita-
ristic and economic powerhouse by the beginning of
the 20th century.”
roughout the Meiji period there was rapid industrial-
ization, the development of a capitalist economy, and the
transformation of many feudal workers to wage laborers.
During the first half of the Meiji period, there were labor
disputes in the mining and textile industries, mostly in
the form of small-scale strikes and spontaneous riots. By
the end of the nineteenth century strike action increased.
In 1897, a metalworker’s union was established and this
marked the beginning of a modern Japanese trade-union
movement. With the changes in social structure, edu-
cation, working conditions, and hope for the future the
Japanese people were able to advance through the ranks
of society more easily than before. e average height
of men (Fig.7) also advanced at pace with these SEPE
changes in Japanese society.
An important analysis by Makiko Kouchi [87] showed
that the secular trend in Japan was stronger for peo-
ple of lower socioeconomic classes than it was for the
higher SES groups. e analysis is shown in Fig.7 with
newer data to the year 2000. e data for “students”
were based on measurements of university students,
who are the upper social class of Japan. “Conscripts”
and “general population” are the lower social classes.
e data for students for the years 1924–1927 and for
the general population for the years 1919–1926 are for
height measured at ages 21–35 years. All other data
Page 15 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
are for height measured at age 20years. e steepest
increase in average height for the general population
occurred from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. ese
are people born 20 years earlier, growing up from the
late 1910s to 1920s. After 1975, there were no differ-
ences in average height between university students and
the general population, in part because a university edu-
cation was possible for young women and men from the
general population. Likely reasons for the strong posi-
tive height trend of the general population during the
twentieth century were industrialization and urbaniza-
tion of Japan that brought about major changes in SEPE
factors. e changes were especially strong for the lower
social classes, including social and political changes
due to rural-to-urban migration, universal education,
greater democratization, and the breakdown of the
power of the monarchy and aristocracy after World War
II. ese SEPE changes resulted in a reduction of social
inequalities, greater socioeconomic opportunities, and
greater hope for the lower social classes—the group that
experienced the greatest increases in height.
Conclusion
A famous quote about happiness is, “e three grand
essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone
to love, and something to hope for.” ese words are
often attributed to Alexander Chalmers (1759–1834), a
Scottish writer. Some sources attribute the quote to the
English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician Joseph
Addison (1672— 1719). But the most likely author of the
quotation was the American clergyman George Wash-
ington Burnap (1802— 1859) and published in Burnap’s
book, e Sphere and Duties of Woman: A Course of Lec-
tures (1848), in his Lecture IV [88]. e complete quote is
on page 99 (page 109 of the online edition of the book),
“e grand essentials to happiness in this life are
something to do, something to love, and something to
hope for. We all must have something to love. Espe-
cially is this the case with woman, whose capacity
for affection is much greater than that of man.”
While the book is sexist and couched in the Divine fit-
ting of, “…woman to her sphere” (p.98–99/108–109),
Burnap follows the famous quote with statements from,
“…Rousseau, that great delineator of the human
heart, which is as true to human nature as it is
beautiful in expression; ‘Were I in a desert I would
find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections.
If I could do no better, I would fasten them on some
sweet myrtle, or some melancholy cypress, to con-
nect myself to; I would court them for their shade,
Fig. 7 The relationship between the year of birth and average adult height for Japanese born after 1870, based on government statistics. The data
for students for the years 1924–1927 and for the general population for the years 1919–1926 are for height measured at ages 21–35 years. All other
data are for height measured at age 20–24 years. “The average adult height of Japanese young men and women increased with time, especially
in the generations of the 1940s and 1950s after World War II. However, the rate of change has slowed in generations born after the mid-1960s
and has stopped in generations born after 1980” (translated from the original Japanese [87]). The upper two plots are for men and lower two plots
for women. The symbols indicate: men women—high SES 20-year-old students, ● low SES 20-year-old conscripts (men), ◊ men women—
low SES 20-year-old general population, men women—post-1975 students and general population. Source: Dr. Makiko Kouchi, National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The figure is reprinted with kind permission of the author
Page 16 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
and greet them kindly for their protection. I would
write my name upon them, and declare that they
were the sweetest trees throughout all the desert.
If their leaves withered, I would teach myself to
mourn, and when they rejoiced I would rejoice
along with them.’ Such is the absolute necessity
which exists in the human heart of having some-
thing to love. Unless the affections have an object,
life itself becomes joyless and insipid.”
Another quote from Burnap, page 181/191, “ere
is no brighter emblem of hope than a vigorous, well
developed child. For it we anticipate all the possible
enjoyments of this life, it possesses that which is the
condition of all satisfaction in anything, a strong physi-
cal constitution.” And finally, on page 293/299 Burnap
writes, “A bad government paralyzes all enterprise by
extinguishing all hope. It puts an end to all invention by
taking away all motive. It makes a people idle, vicious,
discontented, miserable. Under a good government
men work together…”
Unfortunately, the quote ends abruptly as pages 294–
295 are missing from the scanned online facsimile of
the book.
Even so, we know how good government fosters ways
for people to work together for better SEPE conditions, for
greater equality in all arenas of life, and for healthier lives.
Burnap knew the essential ingredients of successful
biocultural reproduction and healthy human devel-
opment. To grow well, people—woman, man, child,
infant—require love and hope. An important question
is: are Burnap’s observations generalizable to differ-
ent populations or contexts? Based on anthropological
literature reviewed in previous sections, such as the
work of LeVine, Jolly, Goldschmidt, and Hrdy, the type
of love and hope discussed in this article are human
universals. e cultural universality of love and hope
were identified by Donald E. Brown in 1991 and then
again by Brown and others in 2000 [89]. Brown’s list of
human universals defines “love” as “affection expressed
and felt” and as “attachment.” e universality of hope
is listed as the word “hope.”
Another possible limitation of the emphasis on love
and hope is oversimplification. Love and hope are but
two of the many essential material, biological, social,
and emotional needs of people. A lack of any one of
these essential needs will impair human well-being.
Most of these needs are understood as essential and are
codified as such in technical, legal, medical, scientific,
and philosophical literature. e essential need for love
and hope is less ubiquitous in the literature. e pre-
sent article argues for greater appreciation and atten-
tion to the essential need for love and hope.
essential need for love and hope opens the possibil-
ity for new research to address several additional ques-
tions. Firstly, how can individuals cultivate hope and love
in their own lives? An Internet search using the wording
of this question returned thousands of web pages with
advice and strategies for cultivating love and hope. Read-
ers are welcome to peruse these web pages and glean
from them the most appropriate practices for themselves
and for others. A second question is: are there any prac-
tical applications of this research for healthcare or edu-
cation professionals? In previous sections of the present
article, some applications were described, for example,
the critical need to receive touch and face-to-face social
interaction by infants in medical isolation and orphan-
ages. With respect to education, a Harvard University
webpage notes that, “Very little has been written about
how love impacts teaching and learning” (https:// www.
gse. harva rd. edu/ ne w s/ e d/ 18/ 08/ what’s- love- got- do- it).
e website is a review of a book published in 2018 with
the title, Love and Compassion: Exploring eir Role in
Education [90]. e author is Professor John Miller who
writes that love is a powerful, motivating force for many
teachers and students. Miller’s educational love includes
self-love, love of beauty, compassion for others, and a
love for learning. e classroom, in Miller’s view, is a
community. e community effects hypothesis discussed
in the present article has likely implications for human
growth and development in both formal and informal
contexts of teaching and learning.
A third question: Is it possible to assume that the
average height of a group reflects the social, economic,
and political factors of that group, while the height of
an individual reflects the factor of emotion, in addition
to social, economic, and political factors? is question
could be the basis of a new program of research. My
hypothesis is that social-economic-political-emotional
(SEPE) factors, including love and hope, influence the
height of both individuals and the group (community)
to which they belong. SEPE factors, along with genom-
ics, epigenomics, material, nutritional, and biological
conditions, form a complex matrix of interactions (see
discussion of the matrix in [2, chapter8] at matrix
of interactions creates, metaphorically, a “biocultural
lens” that refracts growth trajectories to create the
wonderous plasticity and diversity of human forms.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the Editor, Shigekazu Higuchi, and other Editorial Board
members for the invitation to submit this article.
Authors’ contributions
BB performed all research, analysis, and writing for this paper.
Funding
No funding was received.
Page 17 of 18
Bogin Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2023) 42:13
Availability of data and materials
The datasets created and/or analyzed during the current study are available
from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable as all data and all analyses are based on existing, publicly avail-
able data.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The author declares that no competing interests.
Received: 29 March 2023 Accepted: 26 June 2023
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