Though typically about two inches taller now than 140 years ago, today’s people – especially those born to families who have lived in the U.S. for many generations – apparently reached their limit in the early 1960s.

　　【长难句分析图解】

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　　①The trend in sports, though, may be obscuring an unrecognized reality: Americans have generally stopped growing.

　　②Though typically about two inches taller now than 140 years ago, today’s people – especially those born to families who have lived in the U.S. for many generations – apparently reached their limit in the early 1960s.

　　③And they aren’t likely to get any taller. “In the general population today, at this genetic, environmental level, we’ve pretty much gone as far as we can go,” says anthropologist William Cameron Chumlea of Wright State University.

　　④In the case of NBA players, their increase in height appears to result from the increasingly common practice of recruiting players from all over the world.

　　参考译文

　　①然而，体育运动的这种趋势可能隐盖了这样一个未被认识的事实：美国人的身高总体上已经停止了增长。

　　②尽管一般来说，现在美国的身高比140年前高了2英寸，但他们，尤其是那些几代生长在美国家庭中出生的人，其身高在20世纪60 年代初期明显已达到了极 限。

　　③他们不会再长得更高了。莱特州立大学的人类学家威廉·卡麦隆·查姆利说：“当今，就总人口来说，在现有环境和基因水平下，我们已经达到了身高的极 限。”

　　④至于NBA 球员，他们身高的增长似乎是从世界各国吸收球员这种日益普遍的做法的结果。