Are white Australians and New Zealanders indistinguishable from white UK residents?

[sandra_nz]

@Banquet_Bear

…just another 1/4 Maori putting his hand up in the thread, for no other reason except to say hi!

Tena koe!

[Ken001]

@astro

Just curious. Accents aside, is there anything about the way white NZ and AU adults look physically that would distinguish them from white UK residents? Larger, smaller more muscular, less muscular, fatter, thinner, slight changes in bone structure, the way they walk, gesture or use physical space … anything that would allow a perceptive person to notice a difference?

The most likely difference is more deeply tanned skin.

Forgive me but BO (body odour) is something we associate with POMS (Prisoners Of Mother England = Brits). Its probably unfair these days but older Brits grew up in an era when hot water was scarce so they only bathed once a week.

Aussies and Kiwis are blissfully naive about social classes so they are much more likely to bounce up to you as if you were a long lost friend. Brits are far more reserved.

Tell you a wee story - I hitchhiked from Stranraer in Scotland years ago. Was picked up by a very pleasant Brit who took me all the way to London. I introduced myself and chattered away…and he never said his name in the whole 6 hours. Fair enough but it amused me.

[Dioptre]

As an Australian living in the UK (and watching my kids grow up in the UK):

The only plausible mechanisms for the difference are different racial heritage (not useful as a general rule, but you can often spot indigenous heritage) and sun exposure.

Lifelong sun exposure is a lot broader than just tans, though. The peaches and cream / rosy cheeks look seems to be established from a youth spent in the UK. You can spot people who immigrated to Australia for around their first 10 - 15 years just from complexion. Similarly the Australian sun ages skin in a way that takes many years to catch up after leaving Australia (long after a tan has faded).

Doesn’t work for New Zealand though, as far as I can tell. The New Zealand lifestyle is more outdoors, but the climate is too similar to the UK.

[robert_columbia]

@sisu

Southern Euros have darker skin as a rule than anlgos.

This seems to be true as a general trend, but you can’t reliably use it to pidgeonhole individual people. If you mixed up a half-roomful of Greeks and a half-roomful of Scots and asked someone to identify each person as Greek or Scottish based just on appearance, they’d probably do better than random chance but still they are probably going to miss a fair number of people.

[TBG]

I would imagine there is as much variation from one white Aussie to the next as there is between any given white Aussie and a white Brit. And vice versa.

[sisu]

@TBG

I would imagine there is as much variation from one white Aussie to the next as there is between any given white Aussie and a white Brit. And vice versa.

Probably more after all we are a country built on immigrants.