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27002 results in Economic history

Page 316 of 1351

  • 4 - Nutrition and health, 1700–1870

  • Edited by Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, Paul Johnson, University of Western Australia, Perth
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 October 2014, pp 118-148

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Nutrition has begun to figure as a dynamic force in history. A well-nourished population in a developed economy, good harvests and unsurpassed procreation expanded the market and triggered the industrial – even industrious – revolution (Komlos 1990; de Vries 2008). The Englishman's taste for meat provoked high wages, driving investment in labour-saving technology that generated industrialisation (Allen 2009a: 47–8). The potato boosted population growth, fuelling urbanisation (Nunn and Qian 2011). Improved nutrition led to cognitive gains and better human capital needed for economic growth (Floud et al. 2011: 22–4). Indeed, Fogel has argued that increased food availability and improvements in human thermodynamic efficiency (in turning food into work effort) accounted for about 20–30% of British economic growth since 1790 (Fogel 1994). Eventually, post-1870, better maternal nutrition led to falling infant mortality and demographic transition (Millward and Bell 2001). Good food made us grow taller and heavier, so that we are now healthier, work harder and live longer: a technophysio evolution (Fogel and Costa 1997; Fogel 2004). In the very big picture, it was the act of cooking food that made us human (Wrangham 2009).

    Path breaking research projects – in energy cost accounting, anthropometrics, regional dietaries and health – provide a fresh lens through which to gaze upon economic development across the United Kingdom. Finding out about diet, its changes and adequacy, and its links to health, casts new light on: the food puzzle, whereby incomes went up but food consumption did not in the years 1770–1850 (Clark et al. 1995); the agricultural revolution; free trade; industriousness and consumption choices; the standard of living debate; time use and labour productivity; the value of open countryside; gender discrimination; urban disamenities; and market integration. It opens up new areas to be explored, around hunger, human growth, longevity, cognition, demography, inter-generational transmission of health inequality and more. How long people live, how many children they bear, how hard they can work, how much they consume, all shape the economy.

Page 316 of 1351