[P]er-capita income can be an ambiguous measure of welfare during the early stages of economic development unless it moves in the same direction as t… - John Komlos

The divergence in the trend of biological and conventional indicators of well-being can be explained... [R]apid population growth and... urbanization... increased demand for food at a time when the agricultural labor force grew more slowly than the industrial... and the gains in labor productivity in agriculture... were lagging... Hence food prices rose relative to... other goods. ...Thus while the real wage might actually rise, it often did not rise as fast as food prices...

[M]arkets were not made in heaven... and they are helping the privileged, as they are constituted today.

Although scientists have been interested in the study of human height from a medical, biological, or anthropological point of view for centuries, economic historians became aware of the implications of quantifying al status only recently.