We in the USA were once the best nourished in the worled

Quoting Robert Reich:

The United States used to be the tallest country in the world but is now one of the shortest of all developed nations.....Low-income kids in America consume an inordinate amount of fast food. That’s bad for height. In a recent British study, one group of schoolchildren was given hamburgers, French fries, and other fast foods; the other got 1940’s-style wartime rations like boiled cabbage and corned beef. Within eight weeks, the children on the rations were both taller and slimmer than the ones on a regular diet.

I am not sure that it is important to have the tallest people in the world (unless basketball is your only interest), but it may be important not to have a poorly nourished underclass.

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