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If you've ever wondered why Dutch people are so tall, this story from The New York Times may have the answer:
Today, the Dutch are on average the tallest people on the planet. Just 150 years ago, they were relatively short. In 1860, the average Dutch soldier in the Netherlands was just 5 feet 5 inches. American men were 2.7 inches taller.
Since 1860, average heights have increased in many parts of the world, but no people have shot up like the Dutch. The average Dutchman now stands over six feet tall. And while the growth spurt in the United States has stopped in recent years, the Dutch continue to get taller.
For years, scientists have sought to understand why average height has increased, and why the Dutch in particular have grown so quickly. Among other factors, the Dutch have a better diet than in the past, and they also have better medical care. But now Dr. Stulp and his colleagues have found evidence suggesting that evolution itself is also helping to make them taller.
It seems that taller men in the Netherlands are more likely to father more children:
Dr. Stulp and his colleagues analyzed data on 42,612 men and women over age 45, looking at the height of their subjects and how many children they had. Dutch men who were taller than average had more children than those of average or lower than average height, the researchers found.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TGV on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:19AM
Well, while the rest of you are off in a slurfest, let me note one essential problem with this story: the data contains Dutch only. So it does not explain why the Americans or the Germans, Danish or Belgians grew up less.
Anecdotal: I'm Dutch. My daughter had a Chinese friend at school, whose parents had immigrated from mainland China, They were tiny: the father was around 1m50, possibly smaller. When I met them, they had three children, the oldest being a boy of 15, who had lived only briefly in China, and he was 1m80. So it might very well be that the environment has something to do with the quick growth.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:54AM
It must be a mutation caused by radiation on the flight from China to the Netherlands. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Saturday April 11 2015, @10:25AM
Maybe it's the traditional large use of dairy products?
Joris Driepinter advertisements (in Dutch) [wikipedia.org]
We were supposed to drink three pints of milk per day, because the television told us so. (And it helped get rid of the ridiculous milk overproduction, of course)
Still, I'll have to admit to maxwell daemon that there is also evidence for the "nose above the waterline evolution" hypothesis: people in Holland are taller than in Brabant, and Holland is the first to go when the Greenland ice cap melts. E.g. Normaal Amsterdams Peil (in Dutch) [wikipedia.org]