Although the human body has been studied for millennia, it is only relatively recently that researchers have realized how much knowledge can be gained from looking at how people grow physically. James Tanner, who pἀssed away at 90, is mainly credited for developing auxology, the study of such change. As he wrote:
“A child’s growth rate reflects, better than any other single index, his state of health and nutrition, and often indeed his psychological situation.”
Tanner’s research and publications impact anthropology, development economics, nutrition, and economic history, in addition to pediatrics.
His work on the Harpenden Growth Study, one of the earliest longitudinal studies, just after the Second World Waɼ, in which succeeding generations at a children’s home in Hertfordshire were measured and assessed from childhood through early adulthood, was the initial source of his influence.
Tanner developed his skills in statistics and the analysis of longitudinal data, which is richer in information than the more common cross-sectional data, with the help of his associate Reginald Whitehouse. Importantly, they showed that charts might be used to shed light on the analysis of human physical growth and evaluate each person’s progress and state of health.
James Tanner Obituary
The most basic of these charts plot the child’s height and weight against an anticipated average growth pattern which is now commonly used worldwide. The growth that deviates from the way may be a symptom of abuse or deprivation.
Tanner created more detailed charts illustrating how early and late maturers differ from one “normal” pattern of growth in adolescence. He added the Tanner scale, a visual representation of change in genitalia, breasts, and pubic hair, to the charts as an addition. It is still used extensively.
Tanner, who was based at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, started to worry about the minimal number of kids who had noticeable growth delays in the 1950s. He invented the first method of treating such a delay with human growth hormone (HGH).
Initially, post-mortem hormone extraction from donors was used. He stopped the medication when it was reported in the 1980s that doing so would increase the risk of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. When genetically modified HGH became accessible in the 1990s, use was restarted.
Tanner and Phyllis Eveleth co-authored the 1976 book Worldwide Variation in Human Growth, which made clear the crucial role that the environment plays in a child’s growth and development.
He demonstrated, for instance, that variations in the average height of large groups of individuals are almost entirely the result of their environment, even though 90% of an individual’s adult height is hereditary. Communities of immigrants, like the Italian or Japanese populations in the US, quickly take on some of the physical characteristics of the native population.
The information demonstrates how height varies by socioeconomic class throughout various civilizations and the correlation between size and per capita GDP. Changes in size can be used to gauge how well food supplements and economic aid are working in underdeveloped nations. According to Tanner:
“A well-designed growth study is a powerful tool with which to monitor the health of a population or to pinpoint subgroups of a population whose share in economic or social benefits is less than it might be.”
His discovery sparked an investigation into the long-term effects of variations in nutritional status, as determined by height and weight, on various life outcomes. Even within a social class, it has been observed that taller people typically earn more money and that young children of unemployed parents generally are shorter than those of employed parents.
The prevalence of chronic disease has decreased as nutrition has improved. Tall women are more likely to marry into higher socioeconomic classes. The deἀth rate from most diseases decreases as height increases, especially in old life. Such discoveries have significant policy ramifications.
Good maternity care and early childhood education can have a positive impact that lasts for decades. Tanner was an excellent speaker. One of the better introductions to human biology and growth research remains in Foetus Into Man (1990), his most well-known and commercially successful publication.
Additionally, he contributed to the development of anthropometric history, the study of the evolution of human height and weight. He authored A History of the Study of Human Growth in 1981 because he was always curious about the background of his field.
Over several decades, he advised an expanding group of statisticians, economists, and historians. Without his assistance, I would not have been able to write my 1990 book, Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980 (co-authored with Kenneth Wachter and Annabel Gregory).
Tanner was born into a military household in Camberley, Surrey. The Second World War claimed the life of his brother. James was a world-class hurdler who could have represented Britain well at the 1940 Olympics, which were never held. He studied at University College of the South West of England (now Exeter University) and Marlborough College.
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He decided to pursue a career in medicine. He enrolled in the St. Mary’s hospital medical school in Paddington, central London, before accepting a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation to the University of Pennsylvania and beginning work at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
There he met Bernice Alture, his first wife, with whom he had two children. He spent most of his career in London’s Great Ormond Street and Institute of Child Health. Bernice pἀssed away in 1991. Later, Tanner and his second wife, Gunilla Lindgren, also an auxologist, discovered further satisfaction in their retirement in Devon.
Along with his daughter, stepdaughter, stepson, and three grandkids, she survives him. His son had dἰed before him. Follow our Twitter page for the latest news and updates.
