If you've ever been to the Netherlands, you probably noticed one of two things a) nearly everyone rides a bike or b) you're a lot shorter than everyone there. According to statistics, this countries population has gained an impressive 20 centimeters in the past 150 years and is now officially the tallest on the planet. While a rich diet and good health care is always a recipe for physical growth, a new study suggests something else is going on as well: The Dutch growth spurt may be an example of human evolution in action.
The study, published online today in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that tall Dutch men on average have more children than their shorter counterparts, and that more of their children survive. That suggests genes that help make people tall are becoming more frequent among the Dutch.
In comparison, the U.S. population was once the tallest in the world. In the 18th century, American men were 5 to 8 centimeters taller than those in the Netherlands. Today, Americans are the fattest, but they lost the race for height to northern Europeans - including Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Estonians - sometime in the 20th century.
Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/04/did-natural-selection-make-dutch-tallest-people-planet
