This was an in-depth follow-up study of nutrition and its impact upon growth in young Chinese children in Hong Kong carried out by Dr. Sophie Leung and Prof. Davies D.P. It recruited 174 infants from a Maternal and Child Health Centre in 1984 and followed them till 7 years.
This study revealed that the mean protein intake during the weaning period exceeded 4 times that recommended by the World Health Organization, indicating there might be over-nutrition in young children. However, children aged 2 years were lighter (by 0.6 SDS) and shorter (by 0.4 SDS) than the US National Centre for Health Statistics reference. Data on weight status and diet at 2 and 4 years consistently showed that the smaller body build of Chinese compared to Caucasians could not be explained by dietary differences.
From these observations, the authors postulated that the smaller size of such healthy Asiatic children reflected genetic rather than environmental influences.
Reference
Leung, S.S.F., Lui, S., Lo, L. and Davies, D.P. (1986)
A re-evaluation of volume of milk and energy intake of
bottle fed babies in the first six months. J. Hong
Kong Med. Assoc., 38, 171-174.
Sung RY, Lui S, Lo L, Leung SS, Davies DP. (1988)
Traditional Chinese infant supplementary medical foods
given by mothers in Hong Kong. Early Hum Dev.
17(2-3):157-63.