Dutch no longer getting taller

7 January 2008

VOORBURG – The Dutch are no longer growing any taller on average. In most European countries the average height of people has increased over time, but this has levelled off in the last few years, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Monday.

Adult Dutch men continued to grow to about 3 cm taller on average, and Dutch women to about 2 cm taller on average, between 1981 and 2000. But in the years that followed the average height has shown little change. The average Dutch man was 1.81m tall in 2006, the average woman almost 1.68m.

The slowdown in growth increase over the past years is not the result of the increase in the number of elderly, nor can it be attributed to a larger number of people with a non-Western background, the CBS reports.

The differences between ‘tall’ northerners and ‘short’ southerners could still be discerned in 2006. The difference in average height between men in the three northern provinces and the two southern ones came to 2.1 cm. The difference between women in the north and south was even greater: 2.4 cm.

Subject: Dutch news