Stature a better indication of a nation's wealth than GDP - researcher

File photo / Thinkstock

A person's height and body mass should be used to measure a nation's wealth and wellbeing, says a researcher.

Professor Les Oxley of the Waikato University, is one of an international team of 11 researching a person's stature as measured by height and body mass index (BMI).

Stature was one of many measures that could be a better indication of a nation's wealth or standard of living rather than the traditional measure of gross domestic product, he said.

"GDP is quite a crude measure of people's wellbeing because it only picks up their monetary wellbeing, it only picks up their wealth. Stature is becoming a much more accepted way of describing people's wellbeing than just how wealthy people are."

Instead, Prof Oxley described stature as reflecting a person's first 21 years of their life.

Men and women from wealthier families tended to eat more protein, often suffered less disease and could afford to be healthier, which, in turn, was reflected in being taller, he said.

Accordingly, taller people tended to be more educated and successful, so stature was linked to future wealth, he said.

"Taller people tend to get better jobs than shorter people, and that's partly because they've had a successful family upbringing that's given them food, care and shelter."

The international team, based in New Zealand, Canada and the United States, have been examining data over the last three years under funding from a Marsden Grant and from the Health Research Council.

One of the focuses of the study was to examine what led to Kiwis becoming less healthy over the last two centuries.

"The story is that New Zealand was a very wealthy and healthy country in the late 19th, early 20th century. And we're trying to work out whether that's true today and if not, when did New Zealand start to lose its prime number one wealth and health status."

Researchers are now combing military records of soldiers from both world wars, data from New Zealand prisons, and data chronicling children's heights from New Zealand schools.

"The data can tell us how the population's stature has changed over time and we can also link that information to when various diseases were affecting the population and the impact that had on people's growth."

The research aimed to uncover the social and economic reasons why New Zealanders have become more obese over time, he said. The information could affect policies, as it would uncover keys to reduce obesity.

The research also hopes to create consistent measures of Maori and Pakeha living standards.

The idea to investigate a person's stature as an indicator of wellbeing was sparked by international research, and by his own work on historical measures of GDP.

"We probably have some of the better measures of GDP historically in New Zealand, but I wasn't satisfied with them giving the whole story. I was looking for some alternative measures to see whether they gave the same story as GDP.

"We wanted to see to what extent stature is a better measure of wellbeing than GDP."

Some results were starting to "dribble out" now, but were still unclear, he said. The plan was to wrap up research by the end of February next year.