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"it used to be (up until the 1950s) that U.S. Citizens were taller than Europeans; this trend has been reversed in the last 30 years - now the Euros are taller
by mattmcknight 17y ago
"it used to be (up until the 1950s) that U.S. Citizens were taller than Europeans; this trend has been reversed in the last 30 years - now the Euros are taller (especially the Dutch)"
This is related to the fact that recent immigration trends into the United States have favored the shorter peoples of the world.
- kingkawn 17y agoStudies on this issue have screened out people of Asian and Hispanic descent in order to maintain a more consistent data set: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/05/040405fa_fact?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/05/040405fa_fact?cu...
- mattmcknight 17y agoOther studies actually show slight overall height gains. Compare NHANES III (1988 - 94) HANES (1999 - 2000) and there is a 0.1" gain. I find that data from the New Yorker quite unbelievable, as the average height has been increasing http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5431a5.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5431a5.htm , so how could there be "no subgroup that is getting taller"? I haven't taken math for a while, but that doesn't make sense. The same article also reports: "Since the nineteen-twenties, the median height of Mexican-American teen-agers has nearly reached the United States’ norm. It’s that norm, and not the immigrants, that has failed to rise." So, you add a lot of people below the mean and wonder why the mean isn't rising?