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United States, once tallest, has been overtaken by Netherlands since the 50s
- dcbadacd 8y agoCan someone please sum it up for those that don't have a subscription?
- bob_theslob646 8y ago> "As for why the height of Americans has plateaued, while the Dutch continue to grow like weeds, Dr. Komlos theorized that it is because of differences in nutrition, health care and spending. “Average income is a very misleading indicator,” Dr. Komlos said. “It depends on who gets that income, and how it is used. If you’re healthier, if you go to the doctor regularly, you’re likely to live longer. And you’re also likely to become taller.”
- bluedino 8y agoThe Dutch have gained 8 inches in height, on average, over the last 150 years. Americans meanwhile onl gained 6cm of height 'Natural selection'. From another, similar article: Average-height women seemed to be favored when it came to having kids, even though taller women had kids who I'm sure the height of the average American has been lowered by immigration from typically shorter people from China, Mexicao, and India were more likely to survive. That, in turn, contributed to the reproductive success of tall men.
- rublev 8y agoHaha what relevance does that quote have?
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- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
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- _red 8y ago>What is immigration?
- seizethecheese 8y agoNot sure why you’re being downvoted. Immigrants into the USA come from shorter countries so that is a likely factor.
- bluedino 8y agoIt's amazing how much taller second and third generation immigrants are than their parents/grandparents. It's all diet. I'm ten inches taller than my grandfather and 7 inches taller than my dad. When I was a kid I remember my granda joking about eating 'white people food' like milk, peanut butter and jelly, and hamburgers, and that being why I got so tall.
- tuesdayrain 8y agoI'm curious if this is mainly due to the diet being healthier, or due to hormones that are given to cows and eventually transferred to the consumer.
- seizethecheese 8y agoLike most things, it’s probably half environmental and half genetic.
- EliRivers 8y agoI'd say for two reasons. Firstly, the article suggests that immigrants were controlled (whites and blacks compared) for so it appears this poster is commenting on something without even reading it, and secondly, the style of the comment makes it clear the commenter is a smug prick with a belief in their own smartness beyond their actual ability - nobody likes a smug prick who doesn't even read the article.
- klipt 8y agoGiven how height conveys many advantages, including higher pay* thanks to people's biases of taller = leader, I wonder how long it will be before people start genetically modifying their unborn children to be taller. * https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2016/03/theres-a-new-type-of-pay-gap-the-height-and-weight-pay-gap https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2016/03/theres-a-new-ty...
- milquetoastaf 8y agoDoes anyone besides pop psychologists actually believe that?
- CompelTechnic 8y agoYes. For example, most people that have ever seen any of the relevant statistics.
- kbenson 8y agoYeah, I believe it. It may be slight, and depend quite a bit on the individual, but I believe it for the same reason I believe attractive people have advantages (and height is an attribute in attractiveness for many), including getting paid more, which is to say for a plethora of small reasons that make sense to me and all add up to the same conclusion. Increased confidence in dealing with others, including negotiating pay. Increased physical capability. Favoratism. Any number of other things. On the flip side, why wouldn't being more attractive provide benefits? Because people strive to always be rational and know their own biases so they can be fair? That's hardly how I see most people acting on a day to day basis. Because less attractive people will try to punish attractive people? Also not something I see often (or at all, really).
- scarmig 8y agoPeople have studied this. The effect is IIRC each inch of height for a man (within the sampled range) confers a 1-2% increase in income, after adjusting for other easily measured factors (race, education, hours worked, etc.) To give a sense of scale, a 5'4" man faces a larger "height gap" than the adjusted gender gap for women.
- RyJones 8y agoMy mom and I are six feet tall; from Indiana. Took her to Amsterdam last year for a few weeks; she said it was the first time she didn't feel like a freak.
- magduf 8y agoI'm also 6' tall. I feel like a giant on the east coast (US). On the west coast, I feel just a little above-average.
- krn 8y agoIs immigration considered as a factor in such studies? Because many of the tallest nations in Europe are some of the least ethnically diverse. Also, 4 out of 10 tallest nations in the world are from former Yugoslavia, which is one of the poorest regions of Europe[1]. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/the-tallest-and-shortest-countries-in-the-world/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/the-tal...
- benwad 8y agoI'm not sure if it's factored in in the study, but the Netherlands is far from ethnically homogenous. Also, most immigration to NL has been post-1950 whereas the USA pre-1950 was an outlier in the Western world for its intake of immigrants.
- krn 8y agoNetherlands is an exception. Most of the countries in the top 10 are extremely ethnically homogenous, and it has nothing to do with income. Montenegro (#2) is one of the poorest, and Norway (#4) is one of the richest.
- bsaul 8y agoNot sure if i understood you correctly, but just in case : Japan is a enthnically very not diverse, and has a very short population. Some ethnicities are taller than others, for sure. So in a way, japan could benefit from immigration from holland, should it happen one day.
- krn 8y agoIf you looked at the tallest and the shortest nations in the world, you would see, that most of them are not ethnically diverse at all. My point is, that the height of a person has nothing to do with the income, but rather with his anchestry. And because the US is extremely etnically diverse, making any conclusions is pointless.
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- nostromo 8y agoIt's pretty obvious this is about immigration and origin, not income or healthcare. Mesoamericans, which became Central Americans, and have since immigrated in large numbers to the US, tend to be shorter than Europeans. Japan has some of the healthiest people on Earth, as measured by things like nutrition, healthcare, and lifespan. But they are still shorter on average than the much poorer Estonians. It feels like the author is inappropriately shoehorning this data into a statement about healthcare.
- mbroncano 8y agoThey also get immigrants in the NL, and quite a lot of them are also shorter.
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- throwawaymanbot 8y agowell the Dutch are the tallest so literally everyone is going to be shorter. Brits, Germans, french etc.. Your point? (I feel you are trying to make some sort of different point though..)
- sandworm101 8y agoSince 50s? Asian peoples, post-wwii immigration.
- charliesharding 8y agoI thought the same thing until I got to this part: "Based on white and black U.S.-born adults ... Asians and Hispanics, who would make Americans appear even shorter, are excluded to better illuminate how the U.S. compares to Western Europeans." Turns it from a "well, duh" to a "wow, interesting".
- deogeo 8y agoArabs/North Africans are also shorter. But I don't know how many the US has.
- timzaman 8y agoIf you visit Holland, this becomes pretty obvious, Dutch and 6'5" myself. I speculate milk culture might be a factor.
- duado 8y agoMilk culture as in a cultural aspect of drinking milk, or the bacteria in the milk?
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- fmajid 8y agoThe reason why the Dutch are tall is they have less of a preference for shorter women: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/08/scientists-try-to-answer-why-dutch-people-are-so-tall https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/08/scientists-try... I used to work for an ISP in Amsterdam. I sent a network engineer to the US. He had never even had a passport before. When he returned, he told me: “I used to have a stereotype of Americans as short, fat people. Now I know it is a fact” (he was 1m95/6’6”)