
United States, once tallest, has been overtaken by Netherlands since the 50s - aerophilic
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-the-tallest-of-them-all-its-no-longer-the-americans-11553254201
======
nostromo
It'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.

~~~
charliesharding
I 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
Arabs/North Africans are also shorter. But I don't know how many the US has.

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fmajid
The 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...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/08/scientists-try-to-
answer-why-dutch-people-are-so-tall)

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”)

------
klipt
Given 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-ty...](https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2016/03/theres-a-new-type-of-pay-gap-the-height-and-weight-pay-gap)

~~~
milquetoastaf
Does anyone besides pop psychologists actually believe that?

~~~
scarmig
People 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.

~~~
rjf72
This doesn't necessarily mean what you think it would mean. As always the
problem with social sciences is that correlation != causation. For instance
taller people also have higher IQs. [1] Its for reasons like this that I think
we're rather more likely to recreate Frankenstein than Gattaca.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence)

~~~
kbenson
Although it's entirely possible that height and/or attractiveness as an
advantageous cultural norm also explains this. If height is seen as
attractive, and beauty leads to more opportunities in education (more
accessible peer tutoring partners, better study group interaction, more likely
to get help from a teacher, etc).

But yes, teasing out the actual causes for anything like that seems impossibly
hard (without breaking ethical guidelines), thus we have a lot of conjecture.

------
RyJones
My 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
I'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.

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timzaman
If you visit Holland, this becomes pretty obvious, Dutch and 6'5" myself. I
speculate milk culture might be a factor.

~~~
duado
Milk culture as in a cultural aspect of drinking milk, or the bacteria in the
milk?

------
dcbadacd
Can someone please sum it up for those that don't have a subscription?

~~~
bob_theslob646
> "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
The 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.

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digitalengineer
(Via reddit) There is a way to get around the paywall for all articles with no
limits. WSJ considers links to articles from Facebook to be advertising, and
allows full access. Next time you find a WSJ article you want to read, simply
paste the following address BEFORE the address of the paywalled article in
your URL bar:

[http://facebook.com/l.php?u=](http://facebook.com/l.php?u=)

~~~
slacka
If you can afford a subscription, please consider supporting our Free Press.
Last year, 53 journalists like khashoggi were murdered in their quest to keep
us informed. America's leader has a war on the Fourth Estate constantly
labeling them, "Fake News". American Journalists are paying the price for this
toxic rhetoric.[2][3] In this time more than ever, those that can afford it,
please support real journalism like WSJ, NYT, and Wapo.

Social Media has been a gift to dictators, allowing them to speak directly to
their subjects. It also has embolden them to use violence against journalists
that report the world in a way that conflicts with their message.

I've been trying to do my part by giving out digital subscriptions to friends
and family that share actual fake news on social media.

[1]
[https://www.apnews.com/2deb8e97a7454800803bc5d156c36d2f](https://www.apnews.com/2deb8e97a7454800803bc5d156c36d2f)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Gazette_shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Gazette_shooting)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_mai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_mail_bombing_attempts)

~~~
jessaustin
Some good people got murdered, so give your money to this big corporation? I
don't follow.

~~~
slacka
First of all there are still local newspapers that have enough business to
support investigative journalism. We can thank the Miami Herald for their work
in breaking the Trump labor Sec. / Epstein scandal wide open. [1]

Secondly there are nonprofit like ProPublica that do amazing work. They were a
major force that brought the dangers of fracking into light.[2]

Finally, Investigative journalism isn't cheap. The orgs need to pay a salary
and travel costs for months and years on a story that may or may not pan out.
In an interview, the journalist that broke it said that it took months to
research and fact check an anonymous tip to develop it into a full blow story.

So no, I don't feel bad about NYT being a "corporation" when their quality
journalism brings to light stores like this.

[1]
[https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html)

[2]
[https://www.propublica.org/series/fracking](https://www.propublica.org/series/fracking)

[3]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-
trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html?module=inline)

~~~
jessaustin
This is a more reasonable line of argument. Start with this rather than "pay
party A in order to balance out harms to party B".

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_red
>What is immigration?

~~~
seizethecheese
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Immigrants into the USA come from shorter
countries so that is a likely factor.

~~~
bluedino
It'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
I'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.

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krn
Is 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-
tal...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/the-tallest-and-
shortest-countries-in-the-world/)

~~~
bsaul
Not 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
If 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.

~~~
eridan2
malnutrition during early childhood causes low height:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunted_growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunted_growth)

