Dutch men and Latvian women are the tallest in the world, new study finds

[bicicleur 2]

Is there any actual studies that show evidence that Y-DNA Haplogroups are associated with certain traits?

I always see people mention this, but as far as I know the Y chromosome is very small and deformed. It mutates quickly and is increasingly shrinking as well. Other than determining sex I would be surprised if Y-DNA haplogroups share macro-traits, but maybe someone here knows better than me?

IMO there are very few.
The only thing I learned is that most of East African long distance and marathon runners have haplogroup T.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Not in Jastorf, but in Nordic Bronze Age culture. There are Proto-Germanic loanwords in Sami languages:

http://www.sgr.fi/susa/91/aikio.pdf

As for Denmark, it was not uniformly Germanic, but ethnically mixed - Germanic, but also partially Celtic:

http://www.davidkfaux.org/Cimbri-Chronology.pdf

However, the Cimbri in Jutland were probably a kind of a Celtic enclave, similar to Galatians in Anatolia.

There were also Celts in Southern part of what is now the Netherlands.

Jastorf is seen as a part of Nordic Bronze.
It is the part of Nordic Bronze where iron age started, through contacts with Halstatt.
IMO iron age and cooling climate is what triggered Germanic expansion.

And yes, many parts of the Netherlands and northern Germany were Celtic before Germanic expansion.

 

[bicicleur 2]

While most countries banned the use of growth hormones being fed to livestock entering the human food chain, the Dutch persisted with it, accounting for the prevalence off tall men, and women, now seen. If the data is reviewed in 20 to 30 years time, you will find average height will normalise

in that case the Americans should be much taller than Europeans

 

[Maciamo]

@maciamo @mindy so the Dutch men as cow hormones driven alpha guys....no Olympics for us
Seriously Maciomo the Frisian Dutch are famous for their equal position between man and women, it's was the thing that for many visitors was obvious to obverse, less Latin kind of way behavior So....


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As I said, Germanic people also have taller and stronger women, which contributes to greater gender equality and higher promiscuity too. That is as valid for the Dutch as for Scandinavians.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Homo florensis lived isolated on the Flores Islands. They were very small (1m20) and chased dwarf elephants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis
Cyprus had dwarf hippopotamus that got extinct when first HG arrived there 12.5 ka.
When a population grows on an isolated island with limited resources, the specimens tend to become smaller consuming less resources allowing to maximize the population.
Hunters on a steppe tend to become taller. Catching their prey requires strength and good physical condition. Here only the strongest survive.

 

[bicicleur 2]

As I said, Germanic people also have taller and stronger women, which contributes to greater gender equality and higher promiscuity too. That is as valid for the Dutch as for Scandinavians.

Belgium has tall men, but not so tall women. How do you explain that?

 

[Angela]

QUOTE=Maleth;485701]I am 6ft tall (183cm) (Very tall on local standards) I used to drink and enjoy Milk when I was young as if my life depended on it. I used to drink my best friends milk too at primary school as he used to get nausea just by the smell of it (he told me).[/QUOTE]

That was me; the very smell of fresh milk used to make me sick. The mouth feel also turned me off. Eggs affected me that way too, and fish, unless it was very fresh. I have a very acute sense of smell, so that may be part of it. To this day I can't imagine drinking a glass of milk; it's sick making. We were all like that in my house except my 6'3" son. He drank milk at friends' houses and so asked me for it. I used to catch him guzzling it from the container when he was little. Yuck. You can still get a lot of protein from cheese and cured meats, which is all I really liked when I was a little girl, hence part of the reason I'm 5'6 perhaps. Genetics is the other part of it, of course. My husband is about 6' tall, and he doesn't drink it at all, but he's always been a heavy protein eater.

Honestly, I don't get the fascination with this whole topic. Who cares? If dancing isn't awkward, it's all good. Men really do have to compete over absolutely everything it sometimes seems to me. I mean, I realize that if life is dependent on a lot of physical conflict, even a couple of inches of difference in height might have an impact all other things being equal, but that isn't the world in which we now live. You guys don't have to go out and hunt me a pizza, for goodness sakes'!

As for the rest, height is just an evolutionary adaptation to a specific environment, so a certain height gets fixed in certain populations. It's also affected by diet, within certain parameters. End of story. There's no absolute value to being taller.

Ed. Dairy consumption is definitely a big factor. Look at the Masai, and this is in comparison to what look to be northern Europeans. At least they don't get the overweight with which it's often associated. Someone above mentioned growth hormones in cow's milk. That's also definitely an issue, with effects on decreased age for the onset of menses, for example. It also has health consequences, obviously.

 

[Maciamo]

Belgium has tall men, but not so tall women. How do you explain that?

It may take centuries or even millennia for natural selection to affect the genes for height. It could be due to the behaviour of our Bronze Age ancestors. It might also have to do with the Roman or Alpine Celtic ancestry, which is considerably higher in Belgium than in the Netherlands.

 

[Minty]

in that case the Americans should be much taller than Europeans

Americans' reaction to hormones foods is growing vertically rather than horizontally.

Oh by the way I said only the Dutch not all the Europeans.

Dutch 80.7%, EU 5%, Indonesian 2.4%, Turkish 2.2%, Surinamese 2%, Moroccan 2%, Caribbean 0.8%, other 4.8% (2008 est.)

http://www.indexmundi.com/netherlands/demographics_profile.html

white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.18%, two or more races 1.61% (July 2007 estimate)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean persons of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin including those of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, Spanish, and Central or South American origin living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic

http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html



As you can see in the states they have more non European descent people who have shorter genes, the other ethnics also tend to suffer lactose intolerance more than European descendants ppl.

Moreover, the lower class in the states probably suffer malnutrition more too, since they are a capitalist society and none of the health care is funded by the government, it has to be paid from their own pocket.

Until Obama came along, and made the middle class pay for the lower class, my relatives over in the States are not happy with that, but that is another story unrelated to this...

So I took some time to read more into this subject:

According to this https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/08/scientists-try-to-answer-why-dutch-people-are-so-tall

Natural selection in addition to good environmental conditions may help explain why the Dutch are so tall,” said the study published Wednesday in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B.

“Height is very heritable – taller parents tend to have somewhat taller children than shorter parents,” Stulp said. “Because taller individuals would have more offspring in the next generation who would be taller, the average height in that generation would a bit taller on average than the preceding generation, if all else is equal.”

There seems to be a cultural preference as well.

Stulp pointed to figures showing that, in the United States, shorter women and men of average height have the most reproductive success.

“There is much variation in what men and women want,” he said. “When it comes to choosing a mate, height tends to have (only) a small effect, which is not very surprising given the many other, more important, traits people value in their mate.”

 

[Maleth]

Ed. Dairy consumption is definitely a big factor. Look at the Masai, and this is in comparison to what look to be northern Europeans. At least they don't get the overweight with which it's often associated. Someone above mentioned growth hormones in cow's milk. That's also definitely an issue, with effects on decreased age for the onset of menses, for example. It also has health consequences, obviously.

Ditto

"To a large extent, the Maasai live on the milk from their cattle",

http://sciencenordic.com/maasai-keep-healthy-despite-high-fat-diet

 

[Minty]

70% of the world population is lactose (non-mother’s milk) intolerant. Certain ethnics such as those of African descents, those of North East Asian descents, those of South East Asian descents namely: Malay, Filipino, and those from Native American descents, even those of Southern European descents, Australian Aboriginal and Hispanic or mixed ethnic background are known not to produce this enzyme or have such low levels of lactase, that this leads to adult lactose intolerance.

90% of adult blacks are lactose intolerant and 20-30% of Caucasians. In societies where milk consumption is highest, lactose intolerance can develop after the age of 4-5 years. Those of Caucasian or Northern European genetic background usually have no problem with lactose intolerance.

For all this, milk may not even be as rich in calcium as we have been led to believe. Amy Lanou, Ph.D., Nutrition Director for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, D.C., says, “The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis are the ones where people drink the most milk and have the most calcium in their diets. The connection between calcium consumption and bone health is actually very weak, and the connection between dairy consumption and bone health is almost non-existent.”

 

[Northener]

70% of the world population is lactose (non-mother’s milk) intolerant. Certain ethnics such as those of African descents, those of North East Asian descents, those of South East Asian descents namely: Malay, Filipino, and those from Native American descents, even those of Southern European descents, Australian Aboriginal and Hispanic or mixed ethnic background are known not to produce this enzyme or have such low levels of lactase, that this leads to adult lactose intolerance.

90% of adult blacks are lactose intolerant and 20-30% of Caucasians. In societies where milk consumption is highest, lactose intolerance can develop after the age of 4-5 years. Those of Caucasian or Northern European genetic background usually have no problem with lactose intolerance.

For all this, milk may not even be as rich in calcium as we have been led to believe. Amy Lanou, Ph.D., Nutrition Director for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, D.C., says, “The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis are the ones where people drink the most milk and have the most calcium in their diets. The connection between calcium consumption and bone health is actually very weak, and the connection between dairy consumption and bone health is almost non-existent.”

Indeed, in the Netherlands milk consume was heavily promoted, due to the agricultural lobby, to get rid of the high milk production.....see this old video clip:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXI5jMnla4






























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[MOESAN]

Before doing too much remarks I 'll need to know how these states are made?
is the 2014 or the 1914 height the height of a generation (say: people born in 1994 and 1894? or the mixt of several generations? I saw that there were always variations in the same countries from years to years and that a mean based upon 5 or 10 year-generation was more reliable that the ones based upon one year only...
I' ve hard work to believe Scandinavian BY ORIGIN are begun dwarves in so little years. And I KNOW Western Balkans people was already taller in 1914 than their supposed rank given by Maciamo (I know it's not Maciamo's imagination in cause);
concerning causes, I still add the physical (body) activity, too often forgotten by people and so important, even if food is a very important mesologic element. the "social class" is not a cause, it only goes along with "better" food (I put better between "-" because too much growth hormones" are not always the better food for true health), less stress, and often enough, less physical activity.
since a long time I saw Dutch people as high statured people, but these last years, in France camping places, I observed they were higher and higher, but lesser athletic, loosing proportional shoulder breadth, without speaking of the women loosing aesthetic quality...
&: like Angela, I think these health" studies about stature does not separate people by ethnic and geographic origins and does not provide sensible matter for comparisons between past and present (and future!) and the to quick conclusions made about genetic and mesologic influences.

 

[Coriolan]

the "social class" is not a cause, it only goes along with "better" food (I put better between "-" because too much growth hormones" are not always the better food for true health), less stress, and often enough, less physical activity.

How do you know that social class is not an active determinant of height or vice versa? It's been proven that taller men are more dominant, better paid and more likely to be in managerial positions. Conversely CEOs tend to be much taller than average. If tall people get better jobs, then natural selection will quickly make the upper class taller. It's not just about nutrition. People unconsciously give positions of power to taller, more dominant men. Both height and dominance are fuelled by testosterone. That's why women prefer taller men. Higher testosterone also means higher fertility. Men don't necessarily prefer tall women because they are seen as more manly and aggressive. As Maciamo said Germanic and Slavic women are taller and these are cultures where women used to go to war alongside men. (Anyone has watched Vikings around here? The actress playing Lagertha the shield maiden is Ukrainian)

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[MOESAN]

How do you know that social class is not an active determinant of height or vice versa? It's been proven that taller men are more dominant, better paid and more likely to be in managerial positions. Conversely CEOs tend to be much taller than average. If tall people get better jobs, then natural selection will quickly make the upper class taller. It's not just about nutrition. People unconsciously give positions of power to taller, more dominant men. Both height and dominance are fuelled by testosterone. That's why women prefer taller men. Higher testosterone also means higher fertility. Men don't necessarily prefer tall women because they are seen as more manly and aggressive. As Maciamo said Germanic and Slavic women are taller and these are cultures where women used to go to war alongside men. (Anyone has watched Vikings around here? The actress playing Lagertha the shield maiden is Ukrainian)

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You are right: I wrote that a bit too quickly and I forgot this aspect of social/professional selection I was aware of. I was focalized on mesologic aspects and I did not think in human choices selection. In some way we could say that in this precise case, at first, social appartenance is more the result than the cause, to split hairs. In this example, a first genetic cause can add to "social" ones and magnify them.
Concerning woman, it seems social organisation (by instance monogamy vs polygamy, apology of viril strength ...) can have some influence upon stature:general increase in the population with a stronger effect upon male stature than upon female stature,. It seems, according to some readings (Coon and others), that some so called "archaïc" forms of 'europoids' showed bigger differences in stature between men and woman: it would have been the case among Western Norwegians. I don't know if these affirmations are confirmed today.
The case of tall "warrior" women is unclear to me; it supposes that every sex had its own genetic basis for stature (Y vs X?) and that we could select tall women in a population where males could keep the same mean stature or even could become smaller??? I need more knowledge here.

 

[Nik]

Macedonians are taller than Montenegrins? Wow, that's new.

Is this study really conducted in 2014? Seems like they're using old figures from the 90s.

I think the best way to determine the height of various ethnic groups is to measure people form only one region (USA for instance) and consider obviously only the non-mixed people born in US.

This is the only way to find the real potential height by highly minimizing the chances of nutrition, weather, etc. influencing the average height. To bring it a step forward, I would say considering the income level too.

 

[MOESAN]

This has to rank as one of the more stupid remarks I've read from a supposedly educated and intelligent person:

“Our study shows the English-speaking world, especially the US, is falling behind other high-income nations in Europe and Asia Pacific,” said Majid Ezzati, a global health researcher at Imperial College London. “Together with the poor performance of these countries in terms of obesity, this emphasises the need for more effective policies towards healthy nutrition throughout life.”

A lot of Americans are obese, but does this guy have any clue how many really short Latin American migrants we have in the U.S.? I've never seen such short people as the Central Americans who have migrated to my area in the last twenty years: the men must be 5'4 and a good number of the women are under 5'. You can't compare the U.S. numbers with those of more homogeneous people. Even in terms of obesity, immigration patterns have an effect. These people, like Native North Americans, can't handle our diet and almost all of them are obese. Just from observation South Asians also get very obese here.

Don't some of these people believe in doing research before opening their mouths? Sheeesh!

Agree. Kind of tabloid science...

 

[MOESAN]

Macedonians are taller than Montenegrins? Wow, that's new.

Is this study really conducted in 2014? Seems like they're using old figures from the 90s.

I think the best way to determine the height of various ethnic groups is to measure people form only one region (USA for instance) and consider obviously only the non-mixed people born in US.

This is the only way to find the real potential height by highly minimizing the chances of nutrition, weather, etc. influencing the average height. To bring it a step forward, I would say considering the income level too.

Agree partly. And I even think USA are too large. This sort of studies need division by ethnic origin and regional localization to make some sense, without forget seriation by years of birth. That said, a study by origin cannot discard effects of way of life, climate, food, social class (all interacting in fact) and so on.