Tanner was a top-ranked hurdler who might well have participated in the 1940 Summer Olympics which were to be held in London, but were cancelled after the outbreak of World War II.

[4] He attended St Mary's Hospital, London, under a scholarship in which he instructed fellow students in physical education.

[5] He went to the United States to complete his medical studies as part of a group of British students funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

[5] He met his first wife, fellow physician Bernice Alture, while at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and performed his internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

By studying the growth characteristics of large populations, Tanner concluded that community-wide data on adult height was an indicator of how a society fosters its youths.