The period of European exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries resulted in the establishment of colonies abroad. Migrants from Europe were widely distributed over the globe and formed permanent populations which have persisted in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa. Though the last large-scale European migrations were those to North and South America in the early decades of this century, some migration still continues, particularly to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

In this chapter we shall attempt to consider populations that are comprised almost entirely of European, rather than of mixed descent. However, such distinctions are sometimes not stated in reports on child growth, especially those from Latin America.

The growth studies

The populations selected for analysis are listed in Table 3. From Canada we have new data only on French-speaking children: two longitudinal studies, one in Montreal and one in the city of Trois Rivieres. The latter study primarily involves physical performance and includes separate analyses of a rural area as well as the city itself. Since our last edition the United States National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has published data from two National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys: NHANES I, collected from 1971–4, and NHANES II, collected from 1976–80. We will use only the latter. This publication (Najjar & Rowland, 1987) gives means for the entire sample which includes approximately 15 percent Afro-Americans. Since we wanted to separate the data on Euro-Americans from that on Afro-Americans, we have had the NCHS data tapes analyzed by ethnic group through the courtesy of the University of Texas Houston School of Public Health.