NETHERLANDS: Have World's Tallest People Stopped Growing?

AMSTERDAM (Xinhua-People's Daily), January 8, 2008: Considered the world's tallest people, the Dutch appear to have stopped growing and average heights have hardly increased, if at all, since 2001, the Central Bureau for Statistics said Monday. From the early 1980s to 2000, the height of the average Dutch men increased by more than an inch (0.0254 m), to just under 5 foot, 11 inches (1.8034 m) in 2000, according to a new study. But since 2001, heights have been unchanged at slightly above 5'11". Dutch women gained slightly to around 5'6" (1.6764 m), the agency said. Study author Frans Frenken thinks the Dutch may be reaching a natural peak. "Previous gains are usually attributed to improvements in nutrition and health care," he said. "If they've reached their optimum level then there's not much more you can do." International studies have found the Dutch to be the world's tallest people, usually ascribing that to wealth, nutrition, genetics, and the country's universal health care system. Frenken says the most recent data show Dutch boys reaching adulthood are, on average, over six feet (1.8288 m). That's 2.2 inches (0.05588 m)taller than their American counterparts, a gap that has been increasing since World War II. He based his figures on his agency's annual poll of around 10,000 people, adjusting them slightly to reflect people's tendency to exaggerate their height. An influx of immigrants has lowered the average Dutch height slightly. Male immigrants are 2.4 inches (0.06096 m) shorter, decreasing the national average by less than half an inch. Source:Xinhua/Agencies