Introduction

Mikel Jaso

Advances in technology and improvements in nutrition have produced remarkable physiological changes in the human body over a relatively short period.

Debate over the causes and implications of those changes has been raised anew by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert W. Fogel and his co-authors in a forthcoming book titled, "The Changing Body." "In most if not quite all parts of the world," they argue, "the size, shape and longevity of the human body have changed more substantially, and much more rapidly, during the past three centuries than over many previous millennia."

If the pattern holds and humans become taller, bigger and longer-living, will that always represent progress? What are the limits?