I found the popularized story more confusing than anything else. Are the researchers talking about the rest of the world catching up to the U.S. figures in general? That would be expected, given that standards of living have been rising everywhere and that the nutrition improvement that is most crucial is probably when food becomes ampler, a point which most of those other countries the story talks about have now reached. I would think that the increases in height get less and less as one approaches the genetically set limits. Add to that the greater U.S. immigration of people who may have grown up with less food and you get the explanation.

But perhaps the study only compared white men with each other or something similar. Even in that case I think the story confuses relative height within a community as a useful measure of general health and the idea that height in the absolute sense is somehow a desirable characteristic.

Nowhere in that article does it state that the average height of Americans has declined. Instead it talks of the relative height of U.S. people to other countries.

When traveling in Mexico, my 5'2" wife discovered that she is a giant, but didn't let it go to her head.

It makes some evolutionary sense. Mating rituals in North America often involve air travel, say, to see your fiancee when you work or study in another city (to give just one example). As the seat space is shrinking, the hulks among us arrive at the destination rather worse for the wear.

"But the statistical side of me knows that the fact that America is no longer the tallest country is an indirect, if partial indicator that our collective health is declining."

That's your statistical side? How badly do you go awry when you go with your gut?

European and African-decent people are taller than Asian and Native-American people. The US used to be predominantly European and is becoming less so and more Asian and Latin-American.

But YAY for socialized healthcare!

Sigh.

Actually, I'm pretty certain that the study *did* indicate that Americans of European descent are getting shorter even as Europeans are getting taller.

It seems to be related to diet.

Citation patrizio? Perhaps the study indicated that but the article cited by Schaller did not.

Americans have not gotten shorter, they have simply slowed the rate at which their average height is increasing (controlling for immigration from Asia/Mexico). The real question is why Northern European heights keep increasing.

Although population height may increase dramatically with a change in diet/environment (Japan for example), that is not the case in Northern Europe in the past 30 years. I suspect women in those countries are selecting for height in picking males in a very discriminatory fashion. This is the only explanation for the current rate of increase given the affluent/prosperous conditions that have existed in places like Hollad for 50 years.

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