Western man has undergone a huge growth spurt, putting on an average of four inches in just a century, scientists have found.

A typical man in a developed country in 1900 would have been 5 feet 6 inches tall, but 100 years later he would have reached 5 feet 10 inches, the Daily Mail reports.

But women only grew by one and a half inches in the same period to stand at a little more than 5 feet 4 inches.

Researchers singled out better diets for pregnant women as the main cause for the height increase. Better sanitation and industrial improvements also were mentioned.

“The rate of technological and human physiological change in the 20th century has been remarkable,” said Nobel-Prize-winning economist Robert Fogel, who headed a team that spent three decades compiling statistics on how people have changed since 1700.

“In most if not quite all parts of the world, the size, shape, and longevity of the human body have changed more substantially, and much more rapidly, during the past three centuries than over many previous millennia.”

To read the complete Daily Mail story, Go Here Now.