Natural Selection May Help Account for Dutch Height Advantage

I have wondered if epigenetic effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics#Transgenerational_...) from the 1944 Dutch famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Dutch_famine_of_1944) could have resulted in a substantial positive impact on Dutch height for several generations following the famine.

It seems likely that eastern Europeans suffered much more extreme privations than the Dutch did in this time period, but maybe they also saw a similar effect, it's just less noticeable because those populations were a couple of inches shorter on average anyway. The notable thing about the Dutch is not that recent generations are taller than their forebears -- that's probably true for most all European populations. The really notable thing is that they're also taller than other northwestern populations like the Danes.

The natural selection argument is probably a better and certainly a simpler explanation, though.

As a shorter than average man often disillusioned reading hundreds of honest female online personals, what about sexual selection and cultural expectations of women in choosing a mate?

Great, this article's title suggests that they've discovered a selective pressure on the Dutch to be taller, but then says they have no idea what that selective pressure might be. At the very end of the article, even:

> Dr. Govindaraju said it was too early to speculate on why some populations are evolving in different ways.

Wtf?

I'm a Dutch young man of 6 feet and 3 inches tall. First of all, I don't believe the claim in the beginning of the article stating that the average height of Dutch men is above 6 feet. I remember reading an article a couple of years back saying the average height for Dutch men is about 5 feet and 11 inches. To me, that looks more like it, but my opinion and experience are not based on proper research, so who knows.

The comment with a reference to the famine in 1944 got my attention though. Can it be that the famine, as an extreme condition, quickly followed by a lot of prosperity (in contrast to Eastern European), caused this remarkable quality?

I once read a book saying that children whose mother didn't eat enough during pregnancy had the tendency to eat way more than children whose mother ate enough. Starting with scarcity of nutrition leads to buffering way too much later on.

- Added FYI: My parents were born in 1949 and 1950. Their parents experienced the famine. Last but not least, I tend to be attracted to the taller women overhere.

See these bollards?

http://www.road-care.co.uk/images/bollard1.jpg

They're all over Amsterdam. Strong selection pressure establishing a minimum height for men wanting to father children there.

I was born in a community of mostly second- and third-generation-removed descendents of Dutch immigrants in the United States. As with most of my friends and classmates, my parents can trace all or almost all of their ancestors back to the Netherlands immediately before coming to the U.S.

Anecdotally, most of the men in my generation are nearly 6' or taller. I have heard the same said of men from several similar small, Dutch-immigrant communities, and those in surrounding towns and counties often remark about how tall the Dutch descendants in the community are (for example, in the context of high school sports). The women are taller, as well, than those in surrounding, mostly German-immigrant, communities.

I have paid a small amount of attention to studies like these. Because of the demographics of my community I've been somewhat skeptical of some of the suggested explanations. Particularly the diet reasoning struck me as odd since despite how closely the community identifies with the Netherlands, it is very much culturally American, with the attendant American diet.

I suspect that genetics really are a big part of the reason that Dutch people grow as tall as they do. The selection reasoning, though, makes some sense as well, though I don't know enough about bloodlines in my community (or the statistical height comparison to current Dutch people) to make much comment about it.

A Dutch friend tells me it's all the hormones Dutch farmers use. Anybody know if that's the case?

Is there any other possible reason for such a thing?

It could simply be an outlier.

Given a group of populations of various size, small populations tend to fill the outlier positions. You see this with schools - almost all of the top ranking schools are tiny. As are the bottom. They all pretty much return to the mean over time.

I've always wondered if the amount of milk and cheese we consume might be a factor. But I expect there's more countries where those things are popular in large amounts.

I happen to be 2 m (6'6) tall and French-Irish. When I used to go out with a Scandinavian social club in California, we were always far taller than everyone else. More than 0.25 m difference in height makes for difficult conversation, so there's a tendency to only talk to other sized people. I also know a British guy that is 2.3 m tall and a Stanford chick whos 2.5 m (how does one get a date if you're ungainly tall?). Perhaps in a millennia, humans will be 4 m tall on average?