Northener
Elite member
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- Location
- Groningen
- Ethnic group
- NW Euro
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- E1b1b/ E-V22
There are so mazny factors at play:
we know already: genetics, food - but others factors are at play too: social sharing or lack of sharing, religion (number of children, anti-abort...: in not religious milieux children of whealthy people are rather scarce), sportive activities and physical work, and age of these physical activities and so on...
at one time, Dutch people were rather sharing their economic success even if it was not always ydillic, maybe with immigration some conditions are changing?
The genetic input seems confirmed by the relatively stable differences between regions of the Netherlands, which surely are more marked in countryside than in big towns.
Really I think this is the clue Moesan:
The Dutch are so tall due to high living standards, excellent health care, and natural selection. High living standards allowed the Dutch to afford high-quality nutrition, and their superb health care prevented many childhood diseases. In addition, tall Dutch men and women have relatively more children, further increasing average heights.
I guess you could see the Dutch have reached a kind of welfare in which the max of the natural conditioned height has been reached? In earlier days as now the North Dutch provinces, not coincidentally the old Single Grave Culture hotspots (?), contain the tallest population.
Especially in my city, with about 50.000 students you will be surprised (as many visitors do) about the large lads cycling around (and of course most students are from middle class and higher).
And it's indeed due to largely welfare spread. I guess you can see in the graphics of the initial posting and that of firetown that in periods of economic wealth combined with Keynesianism, in the period 1945-1975 with kind of social redistribution (Golden years?).
And it's partly because social climbing, with middle class life style that was dominant in most of the labor population. Small nuclear families.
And we see also some kind of paternalistic health care. So nearly every child gets vaccinated health care is easy accessible etc etc. And some private thing. My grandparents were labor people. After my grandfather and grandmother had a second child, the doctor's comment was: "Now put cement in it" I hope I don't have to explain the blunt comment , but the message was clear hahahah How to create petit bourgeois attitude among labor people. And since the 17th century even the Dutch laborers were kind of petit bourgeois (most of them).
But well the result of this all, small families (easier to feed some in a good way than many), better opportunities especially when the welfare state did make a giant leap.
And the immigrants? Most of them are smaller than Dutch average (that's mostly 'nature'). Nevertheless we also see a spurt among them. Most obvious this is the case with for example adopted persons. There is a TV show in which adopted persons discover their roots from the fare East to Latin America, and we always see 'giants' of people meeting their much smaller families in their homeland.
One way or another wealth and the redistribution of wealth and a middle class life style did end in a spurt in tallness.
And yes with the introduction with some (softened compared to the UK or US but still) kind of neoliberalism. Yesterday in the news: nowadays the richest people in the Netherlands pay much lower amounts of taxes compared to middle and lower class, this mus have effect on the general length (because it's a return to privileges and does effect health etc). I guess this has also made a contribution to the slight shrinkage. We are not the welfare state we were used to be.
I guess this is an objective sign: if the general welfare in all its aspect is prosperous than the length of the whole population is rising. And reverse. I consider this almost like a fact (whether this is ideologically convenient for people or not).
The yardstick does not lie Moesan!
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