31–40 of 48 posts
It could simply be an outlier. Given a group of populations of various size, small populations tend to fill the outlier positions. You see this with schools - almost all of the top ranking schools are tiny. As are the bottom. They all pretty much return to the mean over time.
I happen to be 2 m (6'6) tall and French-Irish. When I used to go out with a Scandinavian social club in California, we were always far taller than everyone else. More than 0.25 m difference in height makes for difficult conversation, so there's a tendency to only talk to other sized people. I also know a British guy that is 2.3 m tall and a Stanford chick whos 2.5 m (how does one get a date if you're ungainly tall?)…
Let me get this straight - the "Stanford chick" you know is the tallest woman in history? (qv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people#Women )
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly diet. Obviously it's anecdotal but all of the Dutch people I know consume far more dairy products than those from the UK. Edit: Turns out the Dutch are the third biggest consumers of milk per capita in the world[0], looking at the list of "tallest" countries on wikipedia[1], there seems to be a great deal of overlap at the top of the two lists. I wonder if a secondary factor could also be related to vitamin…
Over 2,000 years ago Julius Caesar described the people that lived where The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany are today. > They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over 2,000 years ago Julius Caesar described the people that lived where The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany are today. > They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipl…
Call me stupid but I thought corn was native to the Americas. I guess something is getting lost in translation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over 2,000 years ago Julius Caesar described the people that lived where The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany are today. > They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipl…
Call me stupid but I thought corn was native to the Americas. I guess something is getting lost in translation.
Is there any other possible reason for such a thing?
Anecdotally, most of the men in my generation are nearly 6' or taller. I have heard the same said of men from several similar small, Dutch-immigrant communities, and those in surrounding towns and counties often remark about how tall the Dutch descendants in the community are (for example, in the context of high school sports). The women are taller, as well, than those in surrounding, mostly German-immigrant, communities.
I have paid a small amount of attention to studies like these. Because of the demographics of my community I've been somewhat skeptical of some of the suggested explanations. Particularly the diet reasoning struck me as odd since despite how closely the community identifies with the Netherlands, it is very much culturally American, with the attendant American diet.
I suspect that genetics really are a big part of the reason that Dutch people grow as tall as they do. The selection reasoning, though, makes some sense as well, though I don't know enough about bloodlines in my community (or the statistical height comparison to current Dutch people) to make much comment about it.
As a shorter than average man often disillusioned reading hundreds of honest female online personals, what about sexual selection and cultural expectations of women in choosing a mate?
The other issue is that sometimes the exlusion statement is phrased in a nasty or blunt way that wouldn't be socially acceptable at all if it were a man talking about a factor of female attractiveness. I am sure there are males out there who make nasty and blunt comments in their profiles, but I am also sure there are fewer of them and they get ruled out for saying such things even by women to whom the statement doesn't apply.
Finally it's even worse that on many sites the statement ruling men under X height out comes at the end of the profile! So you might see how much you have in common with someone and start thinking about a cool date to go on and then get to the end of the profile to find out you never had a chance to begin with.
I would suspect this factor plays a part, but is almost certainly behind better nutrition, in the general increases in heights across the board through the baby boom and sexual revolution in Western countries. But you'd need to explain why it was particularly strong in the Netherlands for it to explain their above average height increases.
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Same with S Korea. New generation kids are significantly taller than just 1-2 generations ago.
I suspect that the reason South Korean children are taller than they were two generations ago is that two generations ago not having enough food to eat was a real problem in South Korea.
As a shorter than average man often disillusioned reading hundreds of honest female online personals, what about sexual selection and cultural expectations of women in choosing a mate?
As a fellow short guy this definitely an issue I face too. In a way you have to appreciate the honesty of these women who make completely categorical statements that they will not consider anyone below their own height, or even anyone below the average male height (so roughly 50% of males) or sometimes even setting their minimum heights well above the male average. Height is simply a major factor of male attractivene…