Alt text: Chart showing average height, but incorrectly scales the entire person instead of just the height, with the Netherlands as the tallest and Indonesians as the shortest. Bottom image is the Bane vs. Pink guy meme showing Bane as the Dutch and Pink guy as the Indonesians.
I wonder how this correlates with ethnic diversity in the population?
Is the Netherlands average high because of a lack there and are the UK and US lower because of greater ethnic diversity in the population?
That’s hard to tell, because not everyone tracks data the same way.
The UK has a population that’s 72% British/Irish. The Netherlands has a population that’s 74% Dutch.
I figured it would be hard to determine statistically, but figured it was worth mentioning for consideration.
The 5 largest ethnic groups in the United States are White (Non-Hispanic) (58.2%), Black or African American (Non-Hispanic) (12%), Two+ (Hispanic) (6.84%), Other (Hispanic) (6.11%), and Asian (Non-Hispanic) (5.75%).
There are lots of factors that can influence height but about 80% of an individual’s height is determined by genetics and certain populations, like those in the Dinaric Alps (including parts of Eastern Europe), are predisposed to taller statures.
For example, Uganda is generally considered the most ethnically diverse country and the average male height there is 5’ 6.4" which is really close to the global average. Correlation by itself doesn’t equal causation but it’s a good place to start.
Genetic diversity obviously plays a role, and epigenetics matter a lot too. The abundance of food and quality of nutrition that we’ve had since WW2 in the Netherlands, combined with genetics that predispose, combine together.
But there is also a BIG difference between the racial stats the US keeps and the direct descendance stats the Netherlands keeps. If your family came from Ethiopia to the US in 1640 and has raised 12 generations of Americans, you’re “Black or African American”.
If your four grandparents are 30cm tall blue Smurfs, but both your parents were born in the Netherlands, you’re a native Dutch person in every Dutch statistic.
That makes sense but if you isolate it down to only the immigrant populations that data lends itself to the theory of ethnic background, or really genetic background, being a better indicator.
The Netherlands has an immigrant population of about 4.8 million out of ~17.8 while the US has about 53.3 million out of ~340.1 million and that’s only counting foreign born.
In the end, I still speculate that ethnic/genetic background is a better indicator than country as this graph shows.
Anecdotally, I’m an American male who is 6’ 1" and my ancestral ethnicity is mostly German with a bit of Swiss. Growing up my friends were the same, mostly having German or Scandinavian ancestry, and I was the short one in the friend group. My friends all ranged from 6’ 2" up to 6’ 9".
Not necessarily. Ethnic diversity is higher in US than in Indonesia.
Shit Americans say.
Source
Pointing out the number for one country and not the other doesn’t demonstrate anything.
I looked it up and it does seem that there’s more diversity in Indonesia than in the US, according to the below Wikipedia article. Hopefully next time we can share information without being hostile. :)
https://share.google/0XBU0Latoy4AIRpgs
Ethnicity: the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent.
That doesn’t mean they have 600 genetic lineages.
I’m confused. Wouldn’t that support the theory?
If lower in ethnic diversity and native Indonesians are naturally short then Indonesia would be shorter on average. Whereas the US, being such a melting pot, would have a greater range of heights bringing the overall average down, right?
If anything it says with increasing diversity height gets closer to global average which seems pretty reasonable.
Isn’t global male height supposed to be about 5’ 7" on average? The closest to that on the graph is the US, which has a very diverse population.
I’m still not understanding your original comment “Not necessarily. Ethnic diversity is higher in US than in Indonesia.”
It seems like you’re saying ethnic diversity isn’t necessarily a consideration in why the heights of the UK and US are where they are but then support the theory with the next sentence pointing out the ethnic diversity of the US.
The original comment says in NL height is more cause lack of diversity. J meant that’s not necessarily the case (ie lack of diversity =/=> taller).
Ok, so I understand that but how does this fit in:
In the US, a country with greater ethnic diversity than Indonesia, the height is close to the global average, whereas in Indonesia it is significantly below. Correlation ≠ Causation but that statement does more to support the idea that ethnic diversity plays a role than it does to dispute it.
Same here. With increasing diversity (e.g. the US) height gets closer to global average versus a country with less diversity (“diversity is higher in US than in Indonesia”) where the average height is likely more representative of strictly ethnic Indonesians.
Again, I understand Correlation ≠ Causation but that’s why I posted my comment as a question rather than a statement. That maybe this graph is skewed because it fails to account for that diversity and instead of going by country it would make more sense to go by ethnic background?