This introduction offers a comprehensive overview of the significant advances made in the anthropometric history of Ibero-America over the past two decades. Enhanced data availability, methodological consolidation, and growing collaboration among researchers have enabled the reconstruction of biological living standards from the colonial period to the present. The volume includes ten country-focused chapters, in addition to an introductory and a concluding essay that frames the field’s main findings, conceptual debates, and future directions. The book highlights both upward trends—in countries such as Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Spain—and cases of stagnation—notably in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Peru—showing that economic growth has not always translated into improved physical well-being. It emphasizes the critical roles of nutrition, infectious diseases, public health policies, child labor, social and regional inequality, and ethnic and gender-based disparities in shaping human stature. Height is affirmed as a valuable indicator of human development and as a tool for assessing historical inequality. The book also reflects the emergence of interdisciplinary research networks involving historians, anthropologists, economists, and public health scholars. The editors call for continued expansion of data collection, especially regarding women, children, and under-researched regions, to deepen our understanding of the historical dynamics of well-being across Ibero-America.