Objective:

it is intended to know the historical evolution of adult height in Extremadura and deepen, from it, in the footprint of nutritional inequality, especially that linked to education.

Methods:

the military documentation conserved in 32 municipalities of Extremadura for the population born between 1857 and 1957 (recruited between 1878 and 1978) is used and, with it, an annual series of statures is elaborated that, besides being standardized and disaggregated according to the level of literacy, is subjected to two dispersion tests: coefficient of variation and Gini coefficient.

Results:

a sustained growth of the net nutritional state, interrupted only by the agrarian crises of the last decades of the XIX century and by the inflation unleashed as a result of the First World War, is observed; the difficulty of perceiving the incidence of the Civil War and the post-war period without taking into account the gains in nutrition achieved subsequently is noted; it is also noted the inability of statistical dispersion to capture the true face of nutritional inequality, which is, however, remarked through the gap that is detected between the literate and non-literate population.

Conclusion:

the expansion of adult height in Extremadura is interpreted as a test of the economic and social modernization of the region, especially of the culmination of the nutritional transition, at the same time as the suitability of literacy is verified to know not only the dynamics of educational inequality, but also the evolution and the degree of intensification of nutritional inequality.

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