[taxcontrol]

[sarc]

I have been to the Netherlands and believe that the country’s unusual tallness is a result of self preservation. When the sea dyke breaks and the land floods, the tall people will be the only ones able to breath.

[/sarc]

[momtothree]

“.. women stand almost five feet six inches tall...”

At five foot eight and a half inches... I must have come from the Amazons. :)

[ansel12]

By comparison, the height of the average American man has risen a mere six cm over the same period.

A 150 years of mass immigration in America, with the last 50 years being non-white, so we are comparing apples to Mexico and the orient.

[VanShuyten]

It’s those wooden shoes. They just make the Dutch look taller.

[tophat9000]

Global warming.and evolution at work

.this is the Netherlands or lowlands all at low lying floodplains

The people have to grow taller because of the rising waters

[Vigilanteman]

There are a couple of other possibilities:

1. Lots of Huguenots who moved to the Netherlands to escape pogroms in France. Most of the early "Dutch" settlers in America came from Huguenot stock, who tend to be tall.

2. Tall men also tend to have taller and longer male private parts, which are more capable of reaching and ejaculating into the deeper recesses of the corresponding female private part.

[SueRae]

I was only there once...but I couldn’t help but notice how tall some were. Several men over 6’6” and women at 6’. Perhaps a smaller population and tall folks oversampled? Who knows.

[barbarianbabs]

it is good to be tall

[phugg]

They may be tall, but they also have big butts and wear mom jeans.

There, I said it.

[Darren McCarty]

The tallest (at least according to wikipedia, so take the source for what it's worth). Most are either Germanic related or Balkan Slavs.

Dinaric Alps area - 6'1 (Balkans)
Dutch - 6'0
Montenegro - 6'0
Denmark - 6'0
Norway - 6'0
Sweden - 5'11 1/2
Serbia - 5'11 1/2
Germany - 5'11 1/2
Lithuania - 5'11 1/2

[blueunicorn6]

Rutabagas. You can’t walk a block in Dutchland without seeing five or six of them wolfing down rutabagas.

[BigBobber]

Floor Jansen

[meadsjn]

women stand almost 5 feet 6 inches tall, and its men 6 feet tall

Just keep importing muslims, and everyone there will get to be about ten inches shorter.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

America used to be the world’s tallest nation until 2007 when Holland passed us. In 1850 the average American was 2.5 inches taller than your average European. The change has mostly come from opening the floodgates to immigrants in the 1960s. We imported a lot of people shorter than the average American. No doubt better nutrition in other nations, especially Asia, has increased their height. But the biggest reason why America lost its standing as the tallest nation in 2007 is the simple importing of 10s of millions of immigrants over the past 50 years.

[Cowboy Bob]

I was an exchange student in holland about 30 years ago. The Dutch were tall back then. I remember walking into a bar and being the shortest person there - and I am about 6’.

All the Dutch I knew smoked cigarettes, and drank beer and coffee, all day and night. I figured that is what made them so tall.

[driftless2]

It was around the time that song "Short People" came out. Many short Dutch people became ashamed of their lack of height.

That so depressed them so much they stopped thinking about having sex. Naturally, it was the taller Dutch people who paid Randy Newman to write the song.

In fact the original lyrics Newman wrote were "short Dutch people, got no reason to live...etc." The word Dutch was excised for the American market.

[roamer_1]

Gehakt.

[Arthur McGowan]

But how the Dutch became the world's tallest people has been somewhat of a mystery.

He means someTHING of a mystery.

[SoothingDave]

Only paying for your own dinner on a date makes you taller.

[dfwgator]

I had always heard that the impact of the 1994 famine had a permanent impact on the size of the Dutch for subsequent generations.

Dutch Famine of 1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944