My guess - the biggest factors in height are genetics and childhood nutrition.
Children born in China and India in the 70s would have a decent chance of experiencing malnutrition, stunting their growth. This created the space to explain the increase in heights seen in these countries over time, as they benefitted from technological advancements, more liberal governments, and the increased wealth from integrating into global supply chains.
Germany, the UK, and the US had already mostly solved their food insecurity problems by 1970, and so saw little increase in height in that period. The differences in height between these nations is probably due to greater genetic diversity in the latter two populations. Northern Europeans tend to be taller than global average, but the US has a significant Latino minority, and the UK has populations from its former colonies. I’m guessing the dip/flattening in the US’s line around 2000 was mostly due to the surge in Mexican migrants around that time.
Was there a big bump in dairy and meat consumption in the Netherlands from the 70s onward? I don’t know anything about it, but it’s an interesting idea
My guess - the biggest factors in height are genetics and childhood nutrition.
Children born in China and India in the 70s would have a decent chance of experiencing malnutrition, stunting their growth. This created the space to explain the increase in heights seen in these countries over time, as they benefitted from technological advancements, more liberal governments, and the increased wealth from integrating into global supply chains.
Germany, the UK, and the US had already mostly solved their food insecurity problems by 1970, and so saw little increase in height in that period. The differences in height between these nations is probably due to greater genetic diversity in the latter two populations. Northern Europeans tend to be taller than global average, but the US has a significant Latino minority, and the UK has populations from its former colonies. I’m guessing the dip/flattening in the US’s line around 2000 was mostly due to the surge in Mexican migrants around that time.
I don’t know what tf happened in the Netherlands.
Dairy and meat consumption.
Was there a big bump in dairy and meat consumption in the Netherlands from the 70s onward? I don’t know anything about it, but it’s an interesting idea