Maybe it’s not our diet but how we feed our children?
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Little Nemo, what was the point of that nastiness? Yes, I misunderstood your comment. I thought that you were talking about the effect of Chamberlain’s visit to the Netherlands on Chamberlain, while you were actually talking about the effect of the visit on the people of the Netherlands. Why did that require you to imply that I have no sense of humor and must be some sort of loathsome monster? Do you think that that sort of nastiness helps things in any way? It’s possible to misunderstand you without being a terrible person.
Huh, I thought this zombie would be gone by now. Since it isn’t, I’ll add.
I used to work with two different Dutch couples who were doing a stint in the US. They were all very tall. When asked about tall Dutch, one couple said that there was a legend in the Netherlands that a fortified milk was introduced back in 1960s or 1970s that caused the taller people. They joked a bit about it, but kind of acknowledged that there may be some truth to it.
I have the same reaction at the weekend when fridgemagnet finally drags his lazy arse out of bed at midday.
As with nearly every trait, maximum adult height is a combination of genetic potential and maximum nurturing.
In well-nourished caucasian populations, it’s thought that the genetic influence is about 80%. In other populations, it may be substantially less, although still usually over 50%.
Optimal nutrition while young is the most important non-genetic variable, perhaps related to such things as protein in the diet well before puberty.
Where populations have average differences that change faster than is reasonable to attribute to evolution, the difference is probably environmental (in this case, nutrition). Those populations will also tend to plateau as nurturing variables are optimized, and the genetic influence for maximum height becomes the primary driver.
Nice lay summary here.