I can smell a Zaeger and Evans comeback
In the year 2525
Those freaky deaky Dutch will be eleven foot ten
If they’re still alive
and assuming a linear growth rate based on the last forty years
Okay, so you couldn’t dance to it.
They make clogs with heels?
What about Fredonia? RT’s gonna be mad you forgot about him…
You know, on that Daily Times page of headlines, I gotta say one of them made me a bit more curious than “Dutch keep growing” … “Urine added to troops’ dried food ration” but it’s really fairly sensationalist: “The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria and most toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it.”
Here I thought they were going to recreate conditions on Mir.
The usual measure seems to be a Body Mass Index of 25 to 30 (30+ is “obese”). BMIs as a measure of health are meaningless for the extremely muscular (athletes) and the frail (brittle old people), but are suitable for most folk.
My family is the average Dutch family. '64 my grandfather was 58 years old and was 5’9". My dad will be 58 years old this year and he is 6’1". In 2034 I will be 63 and I am 6’5". We are even Dutch.
Ooh, you just invented a new fetish.
Cheesy! 
Sorry…
Looks like my Icelandic relatives have got some competition. My mom is now the shortest in the family at 5’8.5, while I’m up there [I’m at least 7-10 years younger than my brothers and cousins, so I’m a little behind generationally] at 5’10.
Of course, I think the American women that I come in contact with are short if they’re under 5’5. Go figure.
Mirrored Indigo Shadows, are tall women common in Iceland, as well? Or is it just your family?
If that’s true, I wonder what Iceland and Holland have in common. I’m not sure its a northern Western European thing. Tall people are common in Holland, and to an extent in Germany, but the people in out neighbouring countries, such as France, Belgium and England, are much shorter. But why?
When I’m in Italy, I feel positively titanic, a blond Walkure towering over short dark men. I must say, I kinda like it.
There’s a relatively new, moderately upscale furniture store in a nearby mall which features the work of, IIRC, Danish* designers, and everything there was absurdly oversized for my modest 5’4" height. I’m talking about armchairs where I can’t fill the seat (which is deeper than my thighs are long) and which leave my feet dangling above the floor, and table-and-chair ensembles where I felt almost like a little kid at the “grownups’” table… without the booster seat.
I’m all for tailored sizing in all things; I was just wishing they offered scaled-down versions of their pieces for shorter people, is all… 
- Although it *might’ve * been Dutch, or perhaps some of both. They are neighbors, after all.
This pic (scroll down to the picture of the model ship on the table) shows our blond Royal successor, Prince Willem-Alexander, in the midst of a Japanese delegation.
The pic shows that Willem-Alexander tries very hard (by showing interest in every objects at waistheight in the vicinity) to tower only two feet above most of his hosts, instead of three feet if he stood up straight. 
Wow, is he freakishly tall, or did they find the shortest Japanese possible?
From a picture at the bottom of that page, he seems to be a bit taller and broader (and with a noticeably larger head) than Bill Clinton, who just shy of 6’3" (1.89m) and varying between 210 and 240 lbs (95 to 110 Kg) as times have gone by, is a big guy but not freakishly so.
By Dutch standards, Prince Willem-Alexander is just on the tall side of average, as the other pics on that same page show, where he stands next to several other Dutch people.
Hmm. I’m only 178 cm (5’10"), which I consider to be extremely average. (It was, in my family–my father’s side (and my Swedish cousins) were all 6’2, 6’3, and my mother’s side was 5’5, so I am in the middle.)
But even I’ve had the experience of standing in a bus shelter on the way home from work and towering over everyone else there. With the rise in Asian immigration, there are many more petit/petite people in Toronto.
OTOH, I’ve seen several people on the subway who were a head taller them me. One of them had to duck to get through the subway-train door. Dealing with that all the time must suck…
:: Sunspace breaks into sweat at the thought of beautiful North European women* ::
[sub]Not that I don’t like South European, East European, or West European women* as well.
**or Asian women, or…[/sub]
Dutch people are very tall, and it’s not just Dutch people who live in the Netherlands, either. Dutch-Americans are tall, too…of course, we Americans are quite fond of indoor plumbing and cattle as well.
I spent my formative years in a community in Montana that is home to many people of Dutch descent, and I was always one of the shortest people in my class. I always just thought of myself as a short person. Granted, my mother (of English/Scottish/Irish descent) is only about 5’1", but my father (of German descent) is about 5’11", which is not short at all. However, at least one kid in my class had a mother who was 6 feet tall. Very, very tall people.
It was quite strange to move to Minnesota (which is where my father is originally from) when I was 14, because it felt like I grew about 6 inches over that summer when I started my new school. We lined up by height for gym class or something like that (a practice in my old hometown that very likely contributed to a bit of a short complex in the first place) and I headed over to the short end like usual…but I belonged in the middle of the girls! I was average! It was amazing! I am now about 5’6" (I’m sure some of those girls I went to school with were taller than that even when I last saw them in 8th grade.)
And, yes, basketball was big in that town, especially girls’ basketball.
Perhaps we should revive the “polder” thread (Maastricht remembers that one fondly, I suspect! ;)) to provide more space for the “expanding” Dutch population!?
(How do you say “The Markerwaald must be drained!” in Dutch?)
Damn! I’m short for a Hollander then! Just a hair under 6 feet! Pops Mercotan was 5’ 10", Gramps Mercotan was more like 5’ 8", but old Great-Gramps Mercotan was 6’ 2".
Why o why didn’t he breed true? 
My dad was 6’1" - right on target! I hit the average for Dutch women, as well.