There was this idea, for a while, that Maya were genetically short and that they were basically "fine" and that's "just the way they are"...This is not true.
The Maya have been suffering for a long time. The Maya carry a legacy of poverty, social-political-economical pressure and poor health that is reflected in their physical growth, mainly in their height, as well as in many other health aspects.
Our research with Maya migrants in Florida (Bogin et al 2002) has shown that Maya children who migrated to the USA are, on average, 11cm taller than their counterparts in Guatemala. These results show the powerful effects of the environment on physical growth. Read more here.
Bogin B, Smith P, Orden AB, Varela Silva MI, Loucky J. (2002) Rapid change in height and body proportions of Maya American children.Am J Hum Biol. 2002 Nov-Dec;14(6):753-61.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12400036
(copyright Hannah Wilson, 2010)
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