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Re:Dutch went from shortest to tallest in Europe through sex... by JoeAltmaier on Monday February 24, 2020 @10:33AM (#22404837)
Interesting. But weren't the Dutch well-nourished 200 years ago? They were relatively wealthy...

If the height differences were adjusted for income etc, it would be convincing. I didn't read the OP. Did they do that?

They did compare them to other populations at the time. Unless the Dutch were especially under-nourished, then the effect seems reasonably well-founded.

Re:Dutch went from shortest to tallest in Europe through sex... by TheCoelacanth on Monday February 24, 2020 @12:03PM (#22405855)
The Dutch had an unusually high level of urbanization. Until the 20th century, urbanization was correlated with worse nutrition.
Re:Dutch went from shortest to tallest in Europe through sex... by tenant on Monday February 24, 2020 @11:37AM (#22405553)
They took account of differences in income for modern Dutch people but not historically I think. I don't know how poor the average Dutch person was relative to other European countries back then that might explain them being small at that time either. The change since then is so extreme relative to other societies that to account for it with an explanation that is just as applicable to all other European societies just doesn't seem plausible to me. Some sort of health or nutrition explanation peculiar to Holland and perhaps to do with childhood intervention (e.g. effectiveness of vaccination programmes, childhood or pregnant mother care, smoking rates etc) seems more likely.