TITLE:
The Dutch, The World Tallest Are Shrinking in the Latest Decade or So: The Lessons from the Case of South Korea and Japan in North-East Asia
AUTHORS:
Hiroshi Mori
KEYWORDS:
Men’s Height, Growth Velocity, Netherlands, Animal Protein, Vegetables, Consumption by Age, South Korea
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.13 No.1,
January
28,
2022
ABSTRACT: The Dutch have been the world tallest since the 1980s but plateaued in
height for the past few decades. A century and a half ago, young men at 20 in
the Netherlands were 165 cm in mean height, as tall as men in France and
Portugal. They grew to 178 cm, as tall as Norwegian in 1960, and
183 cm in mean height in the 1990s and levelled off. It is most likely that the
Dutch may have nearly attained genetic potential as a human being. The statue is a net measure that captures the supply of inputs to health.
Based on the changes in per capita supply of protein from animal products, FAOSTAT, the Dutch seem to have reached the highest level in per capita supply of animal protein. Increases in the supply of protein, however, do not result in
increasing human height, if consumption of other “essential nutrients”
is insufficient (Blum, 2013; Mori, 2018)[1][2]. With the close case studies of Japan and South Korea in respect of food
consumption specifically by children in growing ages, the author suspects that children in the Netherlands may have
been insufficient in the supply of vegetables, “essential nutrients” on the top of
animal products.