10 ms·

Dutch men confirmed as world's tallest

89 points by redcalx 10y ago

emmelaich 10y ago
I have a fun bit of anecdata. My wife and I are not Dutch but our son was born in Amsterdam. He was over 6' (183cm) when he was 13 and is now about 6'5 at 17 years old. I never reached 6' myself, and only a few cousins/uncles have. One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. It's vital for the darker skinned citizens (Moroccans/Algerians) but probably pointless for the 'average' white Dutch person. My standard joke to Dutchies is that they grow tall to compensate for the fact that much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level.
- trhway 10y ago
  >One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. just googled, dairy products of course - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895 Bigger body is beneficial in colder climate and milk is the key in building the bones to enable it - thus whole North Europe and Eastern Europe consume a lot of milk, and lactose intolerance is rare there while being the norm everywhere else on Earth.
  - coolsunglasses 10y ago
    Dietary vitamin D is a relatively low dose and doesn't absorb as well. If you have SAD, for example, the treatment is a humongous needle of VitD and then getting some sun.
  - arocks 10y ago
    Countries like India are heavy users of diary products. Lactose intolerance is rare too. But always fare very poorly in the height rankings. So it cannot be concluded that it is diary products alone.
    - sumedh 10y ago
      http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Three-out-of-four-Indians-have-no-milk-tolerance-Study/articleshow/46522488.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Three-out-of... Many Indians because of poverty dont get access to good food.
    - trhway 10y ago
      milk(calcium) just enables for bigger stronger bones, thus it provides that advantage when there is a pressure for it. The selective pressure for bigger body is present in cold climate and not present in India and even more - due to poverty one can see a pressure for smaller body there. Milk in India is used for another reason - it is a source of cheap (compare to meat) animal protein.
- findyoucef 10y ago
  Hey there I'm Algerian. I find height to be an interesting topic in Algeria because a lot of people grew much taller after france left algeria, so i think environment and nutrition are big factors. My mom, her sister, and her brother were all born in the early 50s during the war and french rule and they were all relatively short. 5'0 5'2 and 5'7 for my uncle, while her other two siblings a sister and brother who were born after the war were much taller. My aunt was 5'6 and my uncle 6'0, and now his son is 6'5.
  - erelde 10y ago
    I think people grew taller generally after the 60s ? Richer nutrition globally certainly, lots of meat (also leading to earlier puberty I seem to remember) ?
    - timje1 10y ago
      Earlier puberty normally results in a shorter adult - since kids tend to grow slowly before puberty and stop once it finishes.
    - findyoucef 10y ago
      Algerians didn't have access to adequate nutrition while under french rule.
  - VeejayRampay 10y ago
    I'm French and I notice the exact same thing in France with the second and third generation of immigrants from North Africa. You see the older guys that first immigrated to France in the 60's hovering around 5'2 or so and the sons and grandsons are all around 6'2" / 6'3".
    - findyoucef 10y ago
      yep it's definitely a nutritional issue. One of the biggest issues about the french occupation was that the native was literally starving. The natives were pushed off the fertile lands, and it was given to european colonists.
- airza 10y ago
  Weirdly though huge IU doses of vitamin D are only by prescription there.
- Confusion 10y ago
  Everyone benefits from additional vitamin D. Nearly everyone is deficient. I take ~3 times the 'suggested' daily dose in supplements, because the suggestion is weirdly low. It reduces the risk of cancer, among other things. You can actually safely take 10 times the suggested daily dose every day without risks, but there aren't any known benefits above ~4 times (100 mcg a day)
  - Kirth 10y ago
    I'd like to see you back that one up with proof :). My doctor told me a vitamin D deficiency is not problematic in Caucasian Europeans.
    - fjellape 10y ago
      Not my post you responded to, but during winter months in northern Europe, vitamin D in diet is recommended. http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:704251/FULLTEXT01.pdf http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:704251/FULLTEX... Page 351.
    - Confusion 10y ago
      The field of medicine is much too large for doctor's to know everything. They are usually not very knowledgeable about dietary needs, following the very conservative general guidelines. See, for instance the NIH at https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...: In 2011, The Endocrine Society issued clinical practice guidelines for vitamin D, stating that the desirable serum concentration of 25(OH)D is >75 nmol/L (>30 ng/ml) to maximize the effect of this vitamin on calcium, bone, and muscle metabolism [37]. It also reported that to consistently raise serum levels of 25(OH)D above 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml), at least 1,500-2,000 IU/day of supplemental vitamin D might be required in adults, and at least 1,000 IU/day in children and adolescents. 1500-2000 IU/day corresponds to 37.5-50 mcg. See the section on Cancer in the following article from the Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)00404-7/fulltext http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)0.... But compare to what the previously mentioned NIH page says about vitamin D and cancer. Find more references, read them and make up your mind. There is plenty to be found. Next up: Potassium. Magnesium. Calcium.
- yodsanklai 10y ago
  Along the same lines, while travelling in Asia I often see asian-american teenagers visiting their asian family. They are usually much bigger than their asian cousins.
- etqwzutewzu 10y ago
  > much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level interesting fact, actually from this site http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm it said "Half of the country lies below 1 meter above sea level, with an eighth of the country lying below sea level."
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Have just caught up with a friend who was employed to extract gas onshore in Holland. The "10s of centimetres" of subsidence they caused was not popular.
    - spiderfarmer 10y ago
      It wasn't the subsidence, it was the earthquakes that made the gas extraction unpopular.
      - Freak_NL 10y ago
        More specifically, the damage these cause in a country that has no natural earthquakes to speak of (so houses aren't build for that kind of damage), and the political denial about this issue (because natural resources equal convenient state income).
- krzyk 10y ago
  Vitamin D is distributed to babies and young children all over Europe (E.g. Ireland, Poland). And it is not pointless for whites, quite the opposite, white persons have more trouble producing them from the sun than darker ones.
  - fjellape 10y ago
    I agree that it's not pointless, but I have to disagree with your second claim. Could you provide a reference for your assertion? The science I have read on this indicates the opposite: "Increased skin pigment reduces the capacity of skin to synthesise vitamin D3" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673682902148 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673682...
    - redcalx 10y ago
      That would make sense - an evolutionary adaptation to lower light levels.
- sevenless 10y ago
  I think it's the increased oxygen from being below sea level, myself.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  > One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. We do? I'm 200cm (nearly 6'7") and was not given vitamin supplements as a matter of course.
intrasight 10y ago
My understanding is that both the tallest and the shortest men are in Africa, and this is due to that continents having the highest genetic diversity - only a small subset of the human genes left Africa.
- has2k1 10y ago
  I don't think it matters much the "small subset of human genes left Africa". More crucial is that the African landscape is quite varied and not too harsh. Almost everywhere south of the Sahara a small tribe could eke out a living. And yet, the environment wasn't too friendly to readily encourage population growth that lead to civilisation(s). Such forces lead to genetic drift (and therefore variation) and also makes tribal formations unavoidable. The phenotype(s) of these tribes are then the embodiment of that genetic drift. When it comes to height, you end up with the Pygmy tribes in the Congo basin and the Dinka along the Nile basin.
  - riffraff 10y ago
    IIRC Australian aborigines, Europeans, and native Americans share most of their DNA, this is across many different landscapes and chances for isolation. Also, civilizations are quite recent compared to the length of the genetic drift.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomp 10y ago
    > And yet, the environment wasn't too friendly to readily encourage population growth that lead to civilisation(s). Hm... maybe the environment was too friendly to encourage a civilisation? I mean, if food grows around you all year long, you're much less inclined to develop means of storing it than if you know you'll experience harsh winter in a few months... Same with housing, clothing, heating, etc.
    - has2k1 10y ago
      I think you are not considering that before the domestication of plants, even if "food was growing around you all year long", it had low caloric content. The key measure is the cost of getting them calories. There are rough thresholds that almost guarantee that you may forever survive but never thrive.
chrischen 10y ago
> "Tall people tend to have a longer life expectancy, with a reduced risk of heart disease. On the other hand, there is some evidence that they are at greater risk of certain cancers, such as colorectal, postmenopausal breast and ovarian cancers." This is actually false. When controlled for childhood nutrition, shorter people have much higher life expectancies Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... (among other sources)
- ekianjo 10y ago
  This is a better link: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094385 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... And this link does show a relationship, albeit far from being as large as the slate article seems to suggest. I'd rather trust a PLOS publication honestly.
- vacri 10y ago
  That article is all over the place. Centenarians in Japan are 4 inches shorter than 75-year-olds? No mention of controlling for diet during upbringing, nor that a human shrinks as they age. The taller half of Europe has fewer centenarians per capita than the shorter half? No mention of climate, which is more troublesome to the elderly in northern Europe. Scandanvians have more heart disease than Iberians? No mention of dietary control. Sardinian soldiers who reach age 70 live a little longer if short? What about if they don't reach age 70? What if more short Sardinian soldiers die in their 60s? There isn't much in the way of apples-to-apples comparison in that article.
  - throwaway13337 10y ago
    Here is a list of studies from the nih with the same conclusion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ The research is clear - controlled for other factors, shorter people live longer.
    - 10y ago
Phemist 10y ago
As a tall Dutch man who has been dragged into this conversation a lot, it is interesting to note that only 150 years ago, the Dutch were the shortest nationality in Europe. To me this means that nutrition has a massive effect on growth. In fact, regular food in Dutch supermarkets is supposedly the most cost-effective fresh food on the planet, ie quality/freshness vs price. I wouldnt be surprised if the growth in relative length of the Dutch correlated with the increased centralization of commerce through the port of Rotterdam (and thus provide access to lots of fresh produce quickly, compared to countries "down the rivers".
- randomname2 10y ago
  Could this possibly be due to other environmental factors than nutrition? (i.e. epigenetics, location, lifestyle)
  - Phemist 10y ago
    The absolute growth in average height? For sure. But a lot of these changes in lifestyle happened in steplock with other European countries (sweden, norway, germany) so they don't necessarily explain why we had such massive growths relative to other European countries. Epigenetics are interesting, offspring of survivors of the winter of 1944 (what we call "de hongerwinter") had a tendency towards obesity, more so than people who were born slightly before that winter. I'm not aware of any studies on height and epigenetics. Our country has always been prone to flooding, but if anything, such "evolutionary" pressures have gotten less as we developed more technology to deal with flood-prone areas.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      There seems to be a link between obesity and a period of famine during gestation. Not sure about height though. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/why-skinny-moms-sometimes-produce-fat-children http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/why-skinny-moms-somet...
      - 10y ago
rejschaap 10y ago
I always find it funny that being tall is seen as positive. There is actually a lot to say for being short. Cars and houses could be smaller, we'd need less food. Is there really anything a 4 foot person can't do as opposed to a 6 foot person? We just need a frame to carry our brains around. Of course there is some tail-end of the distribution stuff like professional basketball and sumo wrestling. And there is the fact that we didn't optimize the world for small people. But I think there is good case for smaller people.
- sevenless 10y ago
  The world is hardly optimized for tall people, as anyone tall who's been on an economy class flight would notice.
  - avar 10y ago
    Of course the last thing to be optimized for tall people is something like airline seats where there's significant pressure to optimize costs. Try going to The Netherlands sometime. You'll find that all sorts of everyday objects are optimized for tall people, including the height of counters, urinals, toilets etc.
    - sevenless 10y ago
      Well, the cost matrix is asymmetric. A world that caters for tall people is inconvenient, at worst, for short people; a world where spaces are made for short or medium people is unbearable or unlivable for tall people. The best is to get away from one-size-fits-all, which is why multiple urinals are often installed at different heights.
      - Freak_NL 10y ago
        Except for airline seats. Because tall people now form an opportunity to extract a premium. You can get an economy seat and suffer, or get an economy seat 'plus' that is the same exact seat located at the emergency exit (meaning leg room and freezing cold from the door). You used to be able to just book early and select those seats, but the airlines figured out that people who are tall, want to significantly lower the risk of thrombosis in the legs, and travel with at least some measure of comfort, really want those seats. So now you pay extra with a lot of airlines (looking at you KLM). Being able to traverse busy areas quickly is a benefit though.
donkeyd 10y ago
I am a just above average Dutch man, but when I lived in the US I felt like a giant, it was interesting.
kofejnik 10y ago
Dutch are ridiculous, as a 6'3" man I'm barely above average when visiting Amsterdam
timwaagh 10y ago
dutch parents stuff milk down the throats of their children. the kids dont like it as the stuff often tastes bad but they keep doing it anyway. 'melk is goed voor elk' (milk is good for everyone) and 'joris driepinter' (joris drinkes three glasses a day) are common folklore here. You get milk with your breakfast and again at school. we don't have school provided lunch in primary school, but we did have school provided milk. I suppose it is good for one thing though: I'm like 6'2 ish and sometimes i actually feel a bit short.
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  "Stuff milk down the throats of their children" You must have had some bad parents. It's true that milk is often served for breakfast, but so are tea and orange juice. "we did have school provided milk" Shows your age. That's a seventies thing.
  - toothbrush 10y ago
    >> "we did have school provided milk" > > Shows your age. That's a seventies thing. Not only. I was in school in the Netherlands in the early nineties, and had "schoolmelk".
    - talideon 10y ago
      I think practically everywhere in Europe did that in the '80s and '90s. We'd get milk and yoghurt in primary school in Ireland back then. Don't know if the practice continued past '95, though.
KaiserPro 10y ago
Ik ben een lang nederlander
DominikR 10y ago
I'm curious why Eastern European countries make up a majority of this top 10 list both for men and women. Is there something uniquely different about their diets?
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  On Balkans they eat a lot of meat. They're kings of meat. Mostly in grilled form. Was awesome. Serbian women are also spectacularly beautiful. While men are mostly "meh" (can't appraise them much, tho)
yiyus 10y ago
And yet, they cannot get together 5 of them who know how to play basket. Why the country with the tallest men (and exceptionally good sport equipment all over the country) does not have a good basketball team?
- erwinvaneyk 10y ago
  The Dutch Basketball league (including amateur of all ages) has about 40,000 players. It just isn't popular.
  - yiyus 10y ago
    But it is quite popular in almost every other European country and the conditions here look perfect to me: tall people, good installations, a weather that usually favors indoor sports, a very active population willing to practice any sport... I see people following the NBA, I see sport shops where basketball equipment is no less present than in any other country, I see baskets in schools and high schools like everywhere. And I have even seen quite some people playing. Certainly more than playing volleyball, and the Dutch volleyball team is a very good one. Of course football is the big thing here, but other countries like Spain or Italy where football is huge also have top basketball teams. Thank you for the number of players data, but I still wonder what are the reasons that basketball is not bigger in the NL.
amelius 10y ago
I guess upon reading this, there will be a lot of tall women moving to the Netherlands, making the difference even bigger.
- colmvp 10y ago
  Heaven forbid tall women dating a short guy!
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  In my anecdotal experience (which I nevertheless tend to value more than "obvious" trivia everybody carries around), Tall women don't prefer taller men. Well, maybe they do in principle, but it doesn't seem to affect their choice at the end of day. Most of really tall women usually go with average height men.
  - amelius 10y ago
    What women settle for may not be what they prefer. Hence perhaps you should limit your study to really attractive women.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      I don't care terribly much what they prefer. Much more interesting question is what they settle on. That's what determines selection.
      - amelius 10y ago
        Perhaps you should re-read this subthread from the top :)
pvaldes 10y ago
There is an endless supply of vitamin D in the sunny Italy or Spain. I don't think that vitamin suplements have a real effect here. Using the same reasoning, we could find a link between legally smoking Cannabis and being taller.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
johan_larson 10y ago
I wonder what the results would look like aggregated by ethnic group rather than nationality. Some African groups (such as the Maasai and Dinka) are known for having really tall people, but they don't have countries of their own, so they disappear when averaged with their shorter countrymen.
tmsbrg 10y ago
I wonder how much the negatives of being short are caused by lower self esteem due to simply what people say and think about heights. I'm one of the shortest people in the country with the tallest people in the world, the Netherlands. My height is 164 cm (aside: why do people tend to give their heights in imperial units? Does anyone get that?). I actually never had a problem with my height or felt bad about it when I was younger. I felt bad about plenty of other things about myself. I remember in elementary school a medical inspection where the inspector told me I'll always be short, and asked me what I thought of it, as if I'd be depressed about it. I didn't get her at all. But whenever there's discussion about it online, it's things like people saying women prefer taller men, or people who are 10 cm taller than me saying they hate being short, and people like that inspection woman that do trigger the insecurity part of my brain. I think it's completely irrational though. As other people have posted, I think the link between health, intelligence and height is one of correlation instead of causation. And I know women's preferences are often much more diverse and different than what people tend to say and think. But still it triggers that insecurity. And I know that can really be a bad thing in itself. Maybe that's the real "shortness" problem people tend to have?
- gakada 10y ago
  It's all relative. As the paper shows, 164cm is average male height in some countries. The average person is only a plane ride away from being either a short or tall person. Unless they are Dutch. Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are. So it is a definite inconvenience to be shorter than the average woman in your own country.
  - gkya 10y ago
    > Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are. Where do you get that impression from?
  - colmvp 10y ago
    Yup. Just sit at a cafe and note every couple you see and count how many women are taller than their male counterpart. I'd be willing to bet you that if I did in my area, I'd find 0. In fact, in all my years of living and traveling I've only seen ONE couple that had a short guy (less than five foot six) with a tall woman (six foot tall+). Or look at dating profiles on match.com and see what women want in terms of eligible heights. You're extremely likely to find women want guys who are taller than they are. In fact, it's not uncommon for a short women to want at minimum guys who are close to a foot taller than they are. And then look at movies and show and see how often couples have the women taller than the man. It's not often.

89 points by redcalx 10y ago

I have a fun bit of anecdata. My wife and I are not Dutch but our son was born in Amsterdam. He was over 6' (183cm) when he was 13 and is now about 6'5 at 17 years old. I never reached 6' myself, and only a few cousins/uncles have. One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. It's vital for the darker skinned citizens (Moroccans/Algerians) but probably pointless for the 'average' white Dutch person. My standard joke to Dutchies is that they grow tall to compensate for the fact that much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level.

trhway 10y ago
>One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. just googled, dairy products of course - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895 Bigger body is beneficial in colder climate and milk is the key in building the bones to enable it - thus whole North Europe and Eastern Europe consume a lot of milk, and lactose intolerance is rare there while being the norm everywhere else on Earth.
- coolsunglasses 10y ago
  Dietary vitamin D is a relatively low dose and doesn't absorb as well. If you have SAD, for example, the treatment is a humongous needle of VitD and then getting some sun.
- arocks 10y ago
  Countries like India are heavy users of diary products. Lactose intolerance is rare too. But always fare very poorly in the height rankings. So it cannot be concluded that it is diary products alone.
  - sumedh 10y ago
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Three-out-of-four-Indians-have-no-milk-tolerance-Study/articleshow/46522488.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Three-out-of... Many Indians because of poverty dont get access to good food.
  - trhway 10y ago
    milk(calcium) just enables for bigger stronger bones, thus it provides that advantage when there is a pressure for it. The selective pressure for bigger body is present in cold climate and not present in India and even more - due to poverty one can see a pressure for smaller body there. Milk in India is used for another reason - it is a source of cheap (compare to meat) animal protein.
findyoucef 10y ago
Hey there I'm Algerian. I find height to be an interesting topic in Algeria because a lot of people grew much taller after france left algeria, so i think environment and nutrition are big factors. My mom, her sister, and her brother were all born in the early 50s during the war and french rule and they were all relatively short. 5'0 5'2 and 5'7 for my uncle, while her other two siblings a sister and brother who were born after the war were much taller. My aunt was 5'6 and my uncle 6'0, and now his son is 6'5.
- erelde 10y ago
  I think people grew taller generally after the 60s ? Richer nutrition globally certainly, lots of meat (also leading to earlier puberty I seem to remember) ?
  - timje1 10y ago
    Earlier puberty normally results in a shorter adult - since kids tend to grow slowly before puberty and stop once it finishes.
  - findyoucef 10y ago
    Algerians didn't have access to adequate nutrition while under french rule.
- VeejayRampay 10y ago
  I'm French and I notice the exact same thing in France with the second and third generation of immigrants from North Africa. You see the older guys that first immigrated to France in the 60's hovering around 5'2 or so and the sons and grandsons are all around 6'2" / 6'3".
  - findyoucef 10y ago
    yep it's definitely a nutritional issue. One of the biggest issues about the french occupation was that the native was literally starving. The natives were pushed off the fertile lands, and it was given to european colonists.
airza 10y ago
Weirdly though huge IU doses of vitamin D are only by prescription there.
Confusion 10y ago
Everyone benefits from additional vitamin D. Nearly everyone is deficient. I take ~3 times the 'suggested' daily dose in supplements, because the suggestion is weirdly low. It reduces the risk of cancer, among other things. You can actually safely take 10 times the suggested daily dose every day without risks, but there aren't any known benefits above ~4 times (100 mcg a day)
- Kirth 10y ago
  I'd like to see you back that one up with proof :). My doctor told me a vitamin D deficiency is not problematic in Caucasian Europeans.
  - fjellape 10y ago
    Not my post you responded to, but during winter months in northern Europe, vitamin D in diet is recommended. http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:704251/FULLTEXT01.pdf http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:704251/FULLTEX... Page 351.
  - Confusion 10y ago
    The field of medicine is much too large for doctor's to know everything. They are usually not very knowledgeable about dietary needs, following the very conservative general guidelines. See, for instance the NIH at https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...: In 2011, The Endocrine Society issued clinical practice guidelines for vitamin D, stating that the desirable serum concentration of 25(OH)D is >75 nmol/L (>30 ng/ml) to maximize the effect of this vitamin on calcium, bone, and muscle metabolism [37]. It also reported that to consistently raise serum levels of 25(OH)D above 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml), at least 1,500-2,000 IU/day of supplemental vitamin D might be required in adults, and at least 1,000 IU/day in children and adolescents. 1500-2000 IU/day corresponds to 37.5-50 mcg. See the section on Cancer in the following article from the Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)00404-7/fulltext http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)0.... But compare to what the previously mentioned NIH page says about vitamin D and cancer. Find more references, read them and make up your mind. There is plenty to be found. Next up: Potassium. Magnesium. Calcium.
yodsanklai 10y ago
Along the same lines, while travelling in Asia I often see asian-american teenagers visiting their asian family. They are usually much bigger than their asian cousins.
etqwzutewzu 10y ago
> much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level interesting fact, actually from this site http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm it said "Half of the country lies below 1 meter above sea level, with an eighth of the country lying below sea level."
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Have just caught up with a friend who was employed to extract gas onshore in Holland. The "10s of centimetres" of subsidence they caused was not popular.
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    It wasn't the subsidence, it was the earthquakes that made the gas extraction unpopular.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      More specifically, the damage these cause in a country that has no natural earthquakes to speak of (so houses aren't build for that kind of damage), and the political denial about this issue (because natural resources equal convenient state income).
krzyk 10y ago
Vitamin D is distributed to babies and young children all over Europe (E.g. Ireland, Poland). And it is not pointless for whites, quite the opposite, white persons have more trouble producing them from the sun than darker ones.
- fjellape 10y ago
  I agree that it's not pointless, but I have to disagree with your second claim. Could you provide a reference for your assertion? The science I have read on this indicates the opposite: "Increased skin pigment reduces the capacity of skin to synthesise vitamin D3" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673682902148 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673682...
  - redcalx 10y ago
    That would make sense - an evolutionary adaptation to lower light levels.
sevenless 10y ago
I think it's the increased oxygen from being below sea level, myself.
Freak_NL 10y ago
> One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years. We do? I'm 200cm (nearly 6'7") and was not given vitamin supplements as a matter of course.

intrasight 10y ago

My understanding is that both the tallest and the shortest men are in Africa, and this is due to that continents having the highest genetic diversity - only a small subset of the human genes left Africa.

has2k1 10y ago
I don't think it matters much the "small subset of human genes left Africa". More crucial is that the African landscape is quite varied and not too harsh. Almost everywhere south of the Sahara a small tribe could eke out a living. And yet, the environment wasn't too friendly to readily encourage population growth that lead to civilisation(s). Such forces lead to genetic drift (and therefore variation) and also makes tribal formations unavoidable. The phenotype(s) of these tribes are then the embodiment of that genetic drift. When it comes to height, you end up with the Pygmy tribes in the Congo basin and the Dinka along the Nile basin.
- riffraff 10y ago
  IIRC Australian aborigines, Europeans, and native Americans share most of their DNA, this is across many different landscapes and chances for isolation. Also, civilizations are quite recent compared to the length of the genetic drift.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tomp 10y ago
  > And yet, the environment wasn't too friendly to readily encourage population growth that lead to civilisation(s). Hm... maybe the environment was too friendly to encourage a civilisation? I mean, if food grows around you all year long, you're much less inclined to develop means of storing it than if you know you'll experience harsh winter in a few months... Same with housing, clothing, heating, etc.
  - has2k1 10y ago
    I think you are not considering that before the domestication of plants, even if "food was growing around you all year long", it had low caloric content. The key measure is the cost of getting them calories. There are rough thresholds that almost guarantee that you may forever survive but never thrive.

chrischen 10y ago

> "Tall people tend to have a longer life expectancy, with a reduced risk of heart disease. On the other hand, there is some evidence that they are at greater risk of certain cancers, such as colorectal, postmenopausal breast and ovarian cancers." This is actually false. When controlled for childhood nutrition, shorter people have much higher life expectancies Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... (among other sources)

ekianjo 10y ago
This is a better link: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094385 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... And this link does show a relationship, albeit far from being as large as the slate article seems to suggest. I'd rather trust a PLOS publication honestly.
vacri 10y ago
That article is all over the place. Centenarians in Japan are 4 inches shorter than 75-year-olds? No mention of controlling for diet during upbringing, nor that a human shrinks as they age. The taller half of Europe has fewer centenarians per capita than the shorter half? No mention of climate, which is more troublesome to the elderly in northern Europe. Scandanvians have more heart disease than Iberians? No mention of dietary control. Sardinian soldiers who reach age 70 live a little longer if short? What about if they don't reach age 70? What if more short Sardinian soldiers die in their 60s? There isn't much in the way of apples-to-apples comparison in that article.
- throwaway13337 10y ago
  Here is a list of studies from the nih with the same conclusion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/ The research is clear - controlled for other factors, shorter people live longer.
  - 10y ago

Phemist 10y ago

As a tall Dutch man who has been dragged into this conversation a lot, it is interesting to note that only 150 years ago, the Dutch were the shortest nationality in Europe. To me this means that nutrition has a massive effect on growth. In fact, regular food in Dutch supermarkets is supposedly the most cost-effective fresh food on the planet, ie quality/freshness vs price. I wouldnt be surprised if the growth in relative length of the Dutch correlated with the increased centralization of commerce through the port of Rotterdam (and thus provide access to lots of fresh produce quickly, compared to countries "down the rivers".

randomname2 10y ago
Could this possibly be due to other environmental factors than nutrition? (i.e. epigenetics, location, lifestyle)
- Phemist 10y ago
  The absolute growth in average height? For sure. But a lot of these changes in lifestyle happened in steplock with other European countries (sweden, norway, germany) so they don't necessarily explain why we had such massive growths relative to other European countries. Epigenetics are interesting, offspring of survivors of the winter of 1944 (what we call "de hongerwinter") had a tendency towards obesity, more so than people who were born slightly before that winter. I'm not aware of any studies on height and epigenetics. Our country has always been prone to flooding, but if anything, such "evolutionary" pressures have gotten less as we developed more technology to deal with flood-prone areas.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    There seems to be a link between obesity and a period of famine during gestation. Not sure about height though. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/why-skinny-moms-sometimes-produce-fat-children http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/why-skinny-moms-somet...
    - 10y ago

rejschaap 10y ago

I always find it funny that being tall is seen as positive. There is actually a lot to say for being short. Cars and houses could be smaller, we'd need less food. Is there really anything a 4 foot person can't do as opposed to a 6 foot person? We just need a frame to carry our brains around. Of course there is some tail-end of the distribution stuff like professional basketball and sumo wrestling. And there is the fact that we didn't optimize the world for small people. But I think there is good case for smaller people.

sevenless 10y ago
The world is hardly optimized for tall people, as anyone tall who's been on an economy class flight would notice.
- avar 10y ago
  Of course the last thing to be optimized for tall people is something like airline seats where there's significant pressure to optimize costs. Try going to The Netherlands sometime. You'll find that all sorts of everyday objects are optimized for tall people, including the height of counters, urinals, toilets etc.
  - sevenless 10y ago
    Well, the cost matrix is asymmetric. A world that caters for tall people is inconvenient, at worst, for short people; a world where spaces are made for short or medium people is unbearable or unlivable for tall people. The best is to get away from one-size-fits-all, which is why multiple urinals are often installed at different heights.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      Except for airline seats. Because tall people now form an opportunity to extract a premium. You can get an economy seat and suffer, or get an economy seat 'plus' that is the same exact seat located at the emergency exit (meaning leg room and freezing cold from the door). You used to be able to just book early and select those seats, but the airlines figured out that people who are tall, want to significantly lower the risk of thrombosis in the legs, and travel with at least some measure of comfort, really want those seats. So now you pay extra with a lot of airlines (looking at you KLM). Being able to traverse busy areas quickly is a benefit though.

donkeyd 10y ago

I am a just above average Dutch man, but when I lived in the US I felt like a giant, it was interesting.

kofejnik 10y ago

Dutch are ridiculous, as a 6'3" man I'm barely above average when visiting Amsterdam

timwaagh 10y ago

dutch parents stuff milk down the throats of their children. the kids dont like it as the stuff often tastes bad but they keep doing it anyway. 'melk is goed voor elk' (milk is good for everyone) and 'joris driepinter' (joris drinkes three glasses a day) are common folklore here. You get milk with your breakfast and again at school. we don't have school provided lunch in primary school, but we did have school provided milk. I suppose it is good for one thing though: I'm like 6'2 ish and sometimes i actually feel a bit short.

spiderfarmer 10y ago
"Stuff milk down the throats of their children" You must have had some bad parents. It's true that milk is often served for breakfast, but so are tea and orange juice. "we did have school provided milk" Shows your age. That's a seventies thing.
- toothbrush 10y ago
  >> "we did have school provided milk" > > Shows your age. That's a seventies thing. Not only. I was in school in the Netherlands in the early nineties, and had "schoolmelk".
  - talideon 10y ago
    I think practically everywhere in Europe did that in the '80s and '90s. We'd get milk and yoghurt in primary school in Ireland back then. Don't know if the practice continued past '95, though.

KaiserPro 10y ago

Ik ben een lang nederlander

DominikR 10y ago

I'm curious why Eastern European countries make up a majority of this top 10 list both for men and women. Is there something uniquely different about their diets?

guard-of-terra 10y ago
On Balkans they eat a lot of meat. They're kings of meat. Mostly in grilled form. Was awesome. Serbian women are also spectacularly beautiful. While men are mostly "meh" (can't appraise them much, tho)

yiyus 10y ago

And yet, they cannot get together 5 of them who know how to play basket. Why the country with the tallest men (and exceptionally good sport equipment all over the country) does not have a good basketball team?

erwinvaneyk 10y ago
The Dutch Basketball league (including amateur of all ages) has about 40,000 players. It just isn't popular.
- yiyus 10y ago
  But it is quite popular in almost every other European country and the conditions here look perfect to me: tall people, good installations, a weather that usually favors indoor sports, a very active population willing to practice any sport... I see people following the NBA, I see sport shops where basketball equipment is no less present than in any other country, I see baskets in schools and high schools like everywhere. And I have even seen quite some people playing. Certainly more than playing volleyball, and the Dutch volleyball team is a very good one. Of course football is the big thing here, but other countries like Spain or Italy where football is huge also have top basketball teams. Thank you for the number of players data, but I still wonder what are the reasons that basketball is not bigger in the NL.

amelius 10y ago

I guess upon reading this, there will be a lot of tall women moving to the Netherlands, making the difference even bigger.

colmvp 10y ago
Heaven forbid tall women dating a short guy!
guard-of-terra 10y ago
In my anecdotal experience (which I nevertheless tend to value more than "obvious" trivia everybody carries around), Tall women don't prefer taller men. Well, maybe they do in principle, but it doesn't seem to affect their choice at the end of day. Most of really tall women usually go with average height men.
- amelius 10y ago
  What women settle for may not be what they prefer. Hence perhaps you should limit your study to really attractive women.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    I don't care terribly much what they prefer. Much more interesting question is what they settle on. That's what determines selection.
    - amelius 10y ago
      Perhaps you should re-read this subthread from the top :)

pvaldes 10y ago

There is an endless supply of vitamin D in the sunny Italy or Spain. I don't think that vitamin suplements have a real effect here. Using the same reasoning, we could find a link between legally smoking Cannabis and being taller.

deleted 10y ago

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johan_larson 10y ago

I wonder what the results would look like aggregated by ethnic group rather than nationality. Some African groups (such as the Maasai and Dinka) are known for having really tall people, but they don't have countries of their own, so they disappear when averaged with their shorter countrymen.

tmsbrg 10y ago

I wonder how much the negatives of being short are caused by lower self esteem due to simply what people say and think about heights. I'm one of the shortest people in the country with the tallest people in the world, the Netherlands. My height is 164 cm (aside: why do people tend to give their heights in imperial units? Does anyone get that?). I actually never had a problem with my height or felt bad about it when I was younger. I felt bad about plenty of other things about myself. I remember in elementary school a medical inspection where the inspector told me I'll always be short, and asked me what I thought of it, as if I'd be depressed about it. I didn't get her at all. But whenever there's discussion about it online, it's things like people saying women prefer taller men, or people who are 10 cm taller than me saying they hate being short, and people like that inspection woman that do trigger the insecurity part of my brain. I think it's completely irrational though. As other people have posted, I think the link between health, intelligence and height is one of correlation instead of causation. And I know women's preferences are often much more diverse and different than what people tend to say and think. But still it triggers that insecurity. And I know that can really be a bad thing in itself. Maybe that's the real "shortness" problem people tend to have?

gakada 10y ago
It's all relative. As the paper shows, 164cm is average male height in some countries. The average person is only a plane ride away from being either a short or tall person. Unless they are Dutch. Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are. So it is a definite inconvenience to be shorter than the average woman in your own country.
- gkya 10y ago
  > Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are. Where do you get that impression from?
- colmvp 10y ago
  Yup. Just sit at a cafe and note every couple you see and count how many women are taller than their male counterpart. I'd be willing to bet you that if I did in my area, I'd find 0. In fact, in all my years of living and traveling I've only seen ONE couple that had a short guy (less than five foot six) with a tall woman (six foot tall+). Or look at dating profiles on match.com and see what women want in terms of eligible heights. You're extremely likely to find women want guys who are taller than they are. In fact, it's not uncommon for a short women to want at minimum guys who are close to a foot taller than they are. And then look at movies and show and see how often couples have the women taller than the man. It's not often.