Why are Europeans getting taller, while Americans (historically the tallest people in the world) are not? A paper in Social Science Quarterly by a team of Princeton/Munich scholars says that the difference is social security and socialized medicine:
“We surmise that the health systems and high degree of social security in Europe provide better conditions for growth than the American health system, despite the fact that the system costs twice as much,” said study co-author John Komlos from the University of Munich in a statement. “There are also indications that American diets are deficient in several areas.”
From the Colonial times until roughly the 1970s, Americans were the tallest people in the world. But then, growth stagnated while Europeans spent the second half of the 20th century growing like weeds. Now, the average Dutchman is six centimeters taller than the average American — “almost an exact reversal of the relationship in the middle of the 19th century,” Komlos says.
(via Wonderland)