TY - JOUR AU - Harris, Bernard AU - Floud, Roderick AU - Fogel, Robert W AU - Hong, Sok Chul TI - Diet, Health and Work Intensity in England and Wales, 1700-1914 JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 15875 PY - 2010 Y2 - April 2010 DO - 10.3386/w15875 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15875 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15875.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Bernard Harris School of Social Work and Social Policy University of Strathclyde Lord Hope Building 141 St James Road Glasgow G4 0LT United Kingdom Tel: +441414448744 E-Mail: Bernard.harris@strath.ac.uk Roderick Floud Duck Bottom 15 Flint Street Haddenham Bucks HP17 8AL UNITED KINGDOM E-Mail: roderick.floud@btinternet.com Robert W. Fogel E-Mail: N/A user is deceased Sok Chul Hong Department of Economics Seoul National University 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu Seoul 08826, KOREA Tel: +82-2-705-4705 Fax: +82-2-705-8180 E-Mail: sokchul.hong@snu.ac.kr M1 - published as Roderick Floud, Robert W. Fogel, Bernard Harris, Sok Chul Hong. "Technophysio Evolution and Human Health in England and Wales since 1700," in "The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700" Cambridge University Press (2011) AB - In their different ways, both Thomas Malthus and Thomas McKeown raised fundamental questions about the relationship between food supply and the decline of mortality. Malthus argued that food supply was the most important constraint on population growth and McKeown claimed that an improvement in the population's capacity to feed itself was the most important single cause of mortality change. This paper explores the implications of these arguments for our understanding of the causes of mortality decline in Britain between 1700 and 1914. It presents new estimates showing changes in the calorific value and composition of British diets in 1700, 1750, 1800 and 1850 and compares these with the official estimates published by the Royal Society in 1917. It then considers the implications of these data in the light of new arguments about the relationship between diet, work intensity and economic growth. However the paper is not solely concerned with the analysis of food-related issues. It also considers the ways in which sanitary reform may have contributed to the decline of mortality at the end of the nineteenth century and it pays particular attention to the impact of cohort-specific factors on the pattern of mortality decline from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. ER -