Abstract
Body height is a life-history component. It involves important costs for its expression and maintenance, which may originate trade-offs on other costly components such as reproduction or immunity. Although previous evidence has supported the idea that human height could be a sexually selected trait, the explanatory mechanisms that underlie this selection are poorly understood. Despite extensive studies on the association between height and attractiveness, the role of immunity in linking this relation is scarcely studied, particularly in non-Western populations. Here, we tested whether human height is related to health measured by self-perception, and relevant nutritional and health anthropometric indicators in three Latin-American populations that widely differ in socioeconomic and ecological conditions: two urbanised populations from Bogota (Colombia) and Mexico City (Mexico), and one isolated indigenous population (Me’Phaa, Mexico). Results showed that self-reported health is best predicted by an interaction between height and waist circumference, and the costs associated with large waist circumference are height-dependent, affecting taller people more than shorter individuals. If health and genetic quality cues play an important role in human mate-choice, and height and waist interact to signal health, its evolutionary consequences, including cognitive and behavioural effects, should be addressed in future research.
Footnotes
Main changes: 1. We have modified the conceptual framework along the whole manuscript, indicating that Self-perception of health is a very indirect proxy of immunocompentence. Hence, the term "immunocompentence" was treated more carefully and only as a possible, limited mechanism of general health perception. 2. Now, instead of using Linear Mixed Models, we use Linear Models, and include Sample (Bogota, Mexico City, Me'Phaa) as a fixed factor in all models, instead of the both Country (Colombia, Mexico) and Population (urban, indigenous). 3. We have added more information regarding the model selection process, as well as information of each model. Importantly, the main findings remain and indeed are strengthened, and even replicated when using visceral fat instead of waist circumference as an abdominal adiposity measure.
