The height difference is minimal for Koreans over forty years old, who grew up at a time when economic conditions in the North were roughly comparable to those in the South, while height disparities are most acute for Koreans who grew up in the mid-1990s – a demographic in which South Koreans are about 12 cms taller than their North Korean counterparts – as this was a period during which the North was affected by a harsh famine where hundreds of thousands, if not millions, died of hunger.