Anthropometric measurements by ethnicity in Colombia, 1965-1990

•We examine changes in the average height of Colombian ethnic groups.•Afrocolombian are the tallest people compared to other ethnic group in Colombia.•We confirm that living conditions and nutritional status are positively associated with stature.•We found that an increase in food supply has larger positive effects for the indigenous group.

We analyzed the evolution of height in Colombia of cohorts born in the period 1965-1990 by ethnic groups. We found that Afro-Colombian men and women were the tallest: 6 cm taller than indigenous people and 2 cm taller than the rest of the population. We also found that the height gap between Afro-Colombians and others decreased during the period under study by 0.7 cm for both men and women. While improvements were noticeable among the Afro-Colombians and those who chose not to be classified by ethnicity, in the case of the indigenous population only female cohorts registered an average-height increase of 1.5 cm. Moreover, we found that indigenous Colombians were more likely than other ethnic groups to experience an increase in biological well-being as a consequence of an improvement in their socio-economic status, thereby reducing the average-stature gap between them and the rest of the population by 2.1 and 3.6 cm for men and women, respectively.