OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the incidence of overweight and underweig
ht individuals among young adults showed inter-generation changes or social
-class differences in Poland between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s.
DESIGN: Comparisons of variation in the body mass index and in height among
79-y-old Polish mates drawn from three successive birth cohorts.
SUBJECTS: Three 10% nation wide random samples of 19-y-old Polish conscript
s, examined in 1965, 1986 and 1995, a total of ca. 80,000 individuals.
MEASUREMENTS: Body mass index (weight (kg)/height (m(2)) and height (m)).
PRINCIPAL RESULT: There has been during the three decades between the mid-1
960s and mid-1990s a gradual and significant increase in the proportion of
both 'overweight' and of 'underweight' young males, as well as of the very
tall and very short ones in the population.
CONCLUSION: The above finding seems intriguing. It may suggest that certain
elements of individual lifestyles, those influencing the leanness vs fatne
ss variation among young adults, as well as those affecting growth in heigh
t, have tended to become in Poland increasingly diversified in terms of bet
ween-family differences, irrespective of social-class differeces and of the
general nationwide changes in living standards.