Comment on Look out its the D*tch
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 3 weeks agoI figured it would be hard to determine statistically, but figured it was worth mentioning for consideration.
The UK has a population that’s 72% British/Irish. The Netherlands has a population that’s 74% Dutch.
There are lots of factors that can influence height but about 80% of an individual’s height is determined by genetics and certain populations, like those in the Dinaric Alps (including parts of Eastern Europe), are predisposed to taller statures.
For example, Uganda is generally considered the most ethnically diverse country and the average male height there is 5’ 6.4" which is really close to the global average. Correlation by itself doesn’t equal causation but it’s a good place to start.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Genetic diversity obviously plays a role, and epigenetics matter a lot too. The abundance of food and quality of nutrition that we’ve had since WW2 in the Netherlands, combined with genetics that predispose, combine together.
But there is also a BIG difference between the racial stats the US keeps and the direct descendance stats the Netherlands keeps. If your family came from Ethiopia to the US in 1640 and has raised 12 generations of Americans, you’re “Black or African American”.
If your four grandparents are 30cm tall blue Smurfs, but both your parents were born in the Netherlands, you’re a native Dutch person in every Dutch statistic.
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
That makes sense but if you isolate it down to only the immigrant populations that data lends itself to the theory of ethnic background, or really genetic background, being a better indicator.
The Netherlands has an immigrant population of about 4.8 million out of ~17.8 while the US has about 53.3 million out of ~340.1 million and that’s only counting foreign born.
In the end, I still speculate that ethnic/genetic background is a better indicator than country as this graph shows.
Anecdotally, I’m an American male who is 6’ 1" and my ancestral ethnicity is mostly German with a bit of Swiss. Growing up my friends were the same, mostly having German or Scandinavian ancestry, and I was the short one in the friend group. My friends all ranged from 6’ 2" up to 6’ 9".