Average American vs European Height

March 30, 2004 11:14 AM

Those towering DutchmenThe height of the average American is roughly the same as it was during the Revolutionary war. The heights of many northwestern Europeans continue to shoot up. Is this simply genetics at work, or could Bush and the Republicans possibly be at fault here?
posted by rks404 (38 comments total)

just kidding about blaming it on Bush!
posted by rks404 at 11:16 AM on March 30, 2004

In the case of the Dutch, it's obviously an adapation to living below sea level. Every time the dikes broke, the shortest Dutchmen drowned. So each generation, the survivors' children become taller. In the distant future, the Dutch will look like giraffes.
posted by SealWyf at 11:27 AM on March 30, 2004

This is the funniest post I have ever read.
posted by the fire you left me at 11:29 AM on March 30, 2004

While the U.S. has not grown in physical stature over the past 220 years, we have gained in moral stature. Europe, on the other hand, drank deeply of the blood of the victims of nationalism, fascism, nazism, communism, imperialism, anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism, and bloated into a continent of apelike physical giants. At the same time, their ethical dimensions have shrunk to the approximate size of a ferret testicle.
posted by Faze at 11:35 AM on March 30, 2004

really interesting...but since our disparities are getting worse and not better, what will happen? Will we stay the same, or shrink?

and Seal : >
posted by amberglow at 11:41 AM on March 30, 2004

Faze has envy issues (grin)
posted by Elim at 11:44 AM on March 30, 2004

also, what about the Japanese? They're much healthier (and have longer life-expectancy) than us, yet still shorter.
posted by amberglow at 11:44 AM on March 30, 2004

we ARE growing wider though so it all evens out....
posted by Elim at 11:45 AM on March 30, 2004

oops---never mind--i saw it says the Japanese are catching up to us.
posted by amberglow at 11:46 AM on March 30, 2004

As a 2m dutchman I must note I've never drowned, proving that it works. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess ferret testicles float, which would also be a good defence against floods.
posted by fvw at 11:48 AM on March 30, 2004

American height statistics are in no small part reflective of the diverse populations we have welcomed into our bosom ever since our founding, the shorter nationalities included.

But the height statistics that Komlos cites include only native-born Americans who speak English at home, and he is careful to screen out people of Asian and Hispanic descent.

So where does one draw the line. Ever? 1/4? 1/2?

And, for that matter, why do we care? Does height really equate to anything other than height? (OL=1.9m, 6'2")
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:57 AM on March 30, 2004

Short on height, big on stature eh faze.
posted by johnnyboy at 12:00 PM on March 30, 2004

Yeah I don't really get this. A whole generation of Dutch are tall? Is that a significant satistical anomally? I thought Americans were tall as most people I know are well over 5'10''. Oh well, as someone who has trouble finding a true size 30 waist (even in european sizes!), I welcome this news of small Americans.

As bad as an American diet is, I can't suppose it would be comparable to what the Mayans faced. We may have a bad diet but it's not that bad.

Though I found the idea of 5ft men storming the Bastille kind of funny. Anyone find a source on this?
posted by geoff. at 12:02 PM on March 30, 2004

While Europeans have grown in physical stature over several centuries we have gained in moral stature as well. We drank deeply from the cup of victory over fascism, communism and imperialism. We learned from our mistakes, and tried to spread this message abroad. Our fraternal capitalist allies have bloated into a continent of lawyers and businessmen. At the same time, their ethical dimensions have shrunk to the approximate size of a ferret testicle.
posted by knapah at 12:14 PM on March 30, 2004

Some of you might want to actually read the article before you start commenting on it.

"We've gained in moral stature?" Right. And God loves 'Mericans better than everyone else. After all, we have excellent social equality, health care for everyone, a dearth of people below the poverty line, and we'd never start wars just because we feel like it.
posted by bshort at 12:16 PM on March 30, 2004

I think that this illustrates the benefits of a healthy lifestyle more than anything else. One neat example is of my girlfriends grandmother and her children. She smoked for a few years when it was in fashion and during that time had two kids (both sexes). Then she quit smoking when she learned that it was unhealthy and had two more kids (both sexes). Consequently, the latter children had several extra inches of height on their siblings.

I think another important factor is diet. My mother works in an office with many other women of her age (economically middle-class). Years ago her coworkers told her that she was spoiling me by preparing expensive (high quality) foods. Their children loved dining on hot dogs, Spaghettio's, Lucky Charms, and Pepsi. Consequently, their children grew to be short and obese whereas I'm tall and in good shape (and am about a foot taller than mom).

American height statistics are in no small part reflective of the diverse populations we have welcomed into our bosom ever since our founding, the shorter nationalities included.

My folks are short immigrants from potato country. I am monsterous American giant!
posted by crazy finger at 12:19 PM on March 30, 2004

Speaking of height, what is the average height in NA?
posted by five fresh fish at 12:22 PM on March 30, 2004

Last time I went to see my doctor she told me the average American man was 5'9" and the average American woman was 5'6". She then told me that I was a statistical anomaly for being a 6'5" woman.
posted by jodic at 12:26 PM on March 30, 2004

With the introduction of a westernized diet, the change in physical stature in Japan has been really striking. Especially when contrasting teenagers of today with grandparents who suffered through WW2. The word in Japanese for these young titans is ??? (shinjinrui, the new race). I'm 5'9" and once had the bizarre experience of being the shortest guy on a Tokyo train platform right after a nearby high school let out.

Of course, all those fried pork cutlets have given Japan a little bit of an obesity problem, but nothing like the USA.
posted by adamrice at 12:28 PM on March 30, 2004

what is the average height in NA?

Hey, let's find out the average height of Mefi!

6'3"/1 = 6'3" or 75 inches average!

On preview:

(75 + 77)/2 = 76 inches average height of Mefi!
posted by crazy finger at 12:29 PM on March 30, 2004

Err, sorry about that. The Japanese worked on preview.
posted by adamrice at 12:30 PM on March 30, 2004

A totally useless study. The only valid comparison to the Dutch population would be Americans of mostly-pure Dutch descent.

From what I understand, for men, there's actually good evidence that taller and fatter correllate, with the same nutritional factors driving both. There are certainly many more fat Dutchmen than there ever were before, and Asia is full of tall men and fat men where once there were short skinny men almost with exception.

I'd worry more about women on this front. High weight and body fat triggers early puberty in girls, and most girls stop growing when they hit puberty. A 9 year old who is 20 pounds overweight gets her growth spurt and ends up a sleek, tall teenager. A 9 year old who is 30 pounds overweight never gets hers, and ends up short and fat.
posted by MattD at 12:58 PM on March 30, 2004

"We've gained in moral stature?" Right. And God loves 'Mericans better than everyone else. After all, we have excellent social equality, health care for everyone, a dearth of people below the poverty line, and we'd never start wars just because we feel like it.

slight problem there... you see, i'm european, i was saying that we have "gained in moral stature" in a comedic take on Faze's post.

but in case anyone missed it, i was joking.
posted by knapah at 1:10 PM on March 30, 2004

Does height really equate to anything other than height?

Yes. It correlates directly with increased wealth and "attractiveness" to the opposite sex.

Is this simply genetics at work, or could Bush and the Republicans possibly be at fault here?

Classic.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:27 PM on March 30, 2004

Though I found the idea of 5ft men storming the Bastille kind of funny. Anyone find a source on this?

It's all relative... if our ancestors are 8 feet tall, they'll think the little 6'5" men were funny.

I read this in print earlier today; found the japanese stats really interesting. I've certainly heard before that height and health were commonly correlated, but did not know that trends were so different in different countries. The fact that the US is not getting taller really does seem kind of strange and not-good. I think we do need to take health more seriously in this country - everyone's getting fatter, but america is really getting fatter. Adding to that the fact that we're among the shorter populations in the industrialized world now, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that this is not just a personal issue anymore.
posted by mdn at 1:39 PM on March 30, 2004

knapah - I was referencing Faze's post, not yours.

And, just for the record, I was joking as well. A lot.
posted by bshort at 2:16 PM on March 30, 2004

..the Dutch love of milk (a study in Bavaria found a direct correlation between height and the number of cows per capita).

Also of note from the article: "The men of the northern Cheyenne, he found, were the tallest people in the world in the late nineteenth century: well nourished on bison and berries.." More high-saturated animal fat diets = greater height evidence. There are lots more of evidence for this.

By the same token, Ive never seen any evidence of vegetarians growing tall over time. India is the worlds highest per-capita consumer of butter but they avoid all other saturated fats. Tribes in Africa that eat diets high in saturated animal fats are very tall.
posted by stbalbach at 2:57 PM on March 30, 2004

MattD: A totally useless study. The only valid comparison to the Dutch population would be Americans of mostly-pure Dutch descent

Err... No. From the article "By and large... any population can grow as tall as any other."
In other words, ethnicity is not a determining factor.
posted by pots at 3:05 PM on March 30, 2004

knapah - I was referencing Faze's post, not yours.

And, just for the record, I was joking as well. A lot.

my apologies, i'd forgotten he had the "moral stature" bit in his as well.
posted by knapah at 3:23 PM on March 30, 2004

Metafilter: I am monsterous American giant! : >

(i'm the runt of the litter--5'9" (almost) with everyone else in my generation all over 6'--the boys and girls)
posted by amberglow at 4:04 PM on March 30, 2004

I'd worry more about women on this front. High weight and body fat triggers early puberty in girls, and most girls stop growing when they hit puberty. A 9 year old who is 20 pounds overweight gets her growth spurt and ends up a sleek, tall teenager. A 9 year old who is 30 pounds overweight never gets hers, and ends up short and fat.

Hrm? I don't doubt that extra weight may trigger early puberty, but how do you figger that a 30 pound 9 year old never gets her growth spurt and ends up short and fat? Would like to see the source on that, considering I was definitely more than 30 pounds overweight when I was 9 and I'm nearly 5'10" now.
posted by BurnedEve at 4:57 PM on March 30, 2004

It's all relative... if our ancestors are 8 feet tall, they'll think the little 6'5" men were funny.

This necessitates an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine.
posted by waldo at 5:11 PM on March 30, 2004

I have certainly noticed a trend towards people getting taller - I have always been among the taller of my peers at 6'1" but, when surrounded by my eldest daughter's friends who are all around 18, I feel like a dwarf. Not just one or two, but every single one of them is at least as tall as me and most are taller. While the girls are clearly shorter than the boys, they are certainly much taller than females of my generation. Along the same lines, I see a lot of students from Japan of all ages and there is a huge difference in the physique of those who are over 40 or so - they are more like the stereotypical Japanese but the younger ones (those under about 20) are generally at least 20cm taller and much more robust looking.
posted by dg at 7:08 PM on March 30, 2004

Not only are the kids getting bigger, but we can expect to get smaller as well.
posted by rks404 at 7:25 PM on March 30, 2004

Maybe it's the drug policy in the Netherlands.

Go ask Alice when she's 10 feet tall......
posted by bwg at 7:50 PM on March 30, 2004

With the introduction of a westernized diet, the change in physical stature in Japan has been really striking. Especially when contrasting teenagers of today with grandparents who suffered through WW2.

The situation is very similar here in Korea. The vast majority of Koreans my age or older come up to my shoulder usually, or a bit higher (I'm 183 cm). When I was teaching university, there were always a good half-dozen kids my height or taller, both male and female.

It's more about the climb out of poverty and the advent of better nutrition than could be expected in the decades following the Japanese occupation and the Korean war than it is western-style diet. The biggest impact of western diet and fast-food here is not taller people, but many fatter ones than once there were, even 10 years ago.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:20 AM on March 31, 2004

every single one of them is at least as tall as me and most are taller

Well sure they are. Have you seen the kinds of shoes teen girls wear these days?

"Heels" doesn't begin to describe them.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:29 AM on March 31, 2004

Crappy diets may be shrinking Americans, but I'd say that it's also all the pesticides we use :

Birth Weights Up After EPA Pesticide Ban, Study Finds - "A federal ban on two popular household insecticides has significantly reduced the number of underweight babies born in neighborhoods where the chemicals had been widely used, a study has found." ( Washington Post, March 22, 2004 )

"The authors write that theirs is the first reported study to show a link between umbilical-cord levels of these two pesticides and newborn size.. The researchers added that it was also the first to document an improvement in birth size from curtailing use of a pesticide.

The study was part of a long-running project by Columbia researchers to gauge the effects of urban pollution on mothers and children. Dr. Frederica P. Perera, director of that effort, said the new results were significant because "birth weight is a very good predictor of later health and development of children, including physical development, mental development and school performance." (New York Times, March 22, 2004)

______________________________________________

Meanwhile, the Dutch - with their crafty selective breeding program which has been outed, quite brilliantly I might add, by SealWyf - will soon be giants to the ever punier yanks.
posted by troutfishing at 10:13 PM on March 31, 2004