Are the Dutch really tall?

There is a cold knowledge that many friends may know-the country with the highest average height in the world is the Netherlands.

The average height of Dutch men is 182.5cm, while that of Dutch women is 168.7cm, which is the highest in the world.

Friends who have been to the Netherlands for meetings or tourism should know that in the Netherlands, a social activity is likely to turn into a funny dwarf country vs long-legged party in an instant.

Every time the king and queen of the Netherlands meet with a foreign head of state, they have to sweat for the foreign head of state-a dignified national leader may become a child of MengMeng in an instant.

When visiting a friend's house in Holland, it is easy to be mistaken for shoes at the door-children come to play.

Then the question comes-why can the Dutch in the lowlands grow so tall?

Today, we will seriously tell you about the magical development history of August 18.

1860, what happened that year?

Everyone thinks Holland is a place where tulips bloom.

This is a romantic place. Rivers and ports are full of water.

Few people realize that circular agriculture in the Netherlands is the top level in the world.

The windmills and clean energy here are also world-leading.

Speaking of the height of the Dutch, we have carefully researched the evolution history of the height of people in various countries in history-surprisingly, before 1860, the Dutch were not as tall as they are now!

You can look at the picture below. Orange stands for Dutch. For a long time, Americans, Germans and Danes have far surpassed the Dutch in height. However, it was after 1860 that the situation reversed, and the Netherlands made great strides, finally reaching the top of the world's highest average height at 1975.

So, what happened to 1860?

According to the historical records of the Dutch army, in 1860, the average height of Dutch soldiers was only 165cm, while the average height of American soldiers in that year exceeded170 cm; ;

At that time, the height of Dutch men was almost at the bottom of Europe, and the contrast was too great! ! !

160 years later, the average height of Dutch men soared by 17.5cm, ranking first in the world, while the height of American men just rose to 177cm, which made them far behind.

From a genetic point of view, this is not like the result of gene mutation, but more like the result of artificial selection-what caused the rapid development of Dutch height when the main gene is not much different from neighboring Belgium and Germany?

Research by Dutch scientists found that from 1860 onwards, Dutch families with many children (that is, more than three children) have a remarkable feature-their parents are much taller than the average height, basically a combination of tall fathers and medium-tall mothers.

This is an interesting discovery, which explains why the height of the Dutch has been systematically improved since that year; At the same time, data from other European countries show that families with strong fertility are often composed of men and women of medium height. It is this interesting deviation that has led to the rapid development of the Dutch to a great extent.

Medical level and large intake of dairy products

However, nutritionists have obviously found other important factors-the Netherlands is a big dairy producer in Europe, with a very high intake of dairy products per capita, and a large amount of protein+trace elements, especially calcium intake that affects bone growth, are all nutritional reasons for the growing height of the Dutch.