Asians have always been stereotyped as short. Perhaps it is because we are all too cute?
However, it seems like this stereotype will soon become inapplicable because a study showed that the average height of Asian women have increased over the past century, Nextshark reported.
Malaysian men saw an increase in average height from 157cm in 1886 to 168cm in 1996.
Malaysian women’s height increased from 147cm to 158cm.
Meanwhile, for South Korean women, their average height increased by 8 inches (20.32cm)! This is the biggest increase ever.
As for the Americans, it seems like they are lagging behind in the height category. American men used to be the 3rd tallest people in the world in 1886 but recently they are ranked 37th, whereas American women are ranked 42nd.
The height of Americans have stagnated over the years but at times even declined! Yeah, American’s actually shrunk!
Majid Ezzati, the lead researcher from Imperial College London said,
“There was a time when the U.S was the land of plenty. But increasingly over time, the quality of nutrition has worsened.
“In some sense, you have a large part of the population who are not getting quality food. That drags the whole place down.”
In other words, Americans are consuming too much junk food… that’s why cannot grow liao…
It took 800 scientists to study and sort out 1,500 surveys and data on height of 200 countries.
Aside from South Koreans, even the Japanese and Chinese people are much much taller today than they were a hundred years ago.
Even the group of men with the biggest increase in height are Iranians with a whooping 6.5 inches (16.51cm) in growth!
Ezzati explained that though food may be the major contributing factor to the American’s decline, the decrease in height for Africans is caused by the lack of proper healthcare.
After the colonial era ended in many African countries, it seems like they are also shrinking.
“You have countries that suddenly cut their entire health care budgets and agricultural (budgets) by large amounts. Those who are affected the most were the poorest.”
Not only that, the height of the nation can also indicate the health of the population, regardless of genes.
“And there’s increasingly good evidence that people who are taller on average tend to live longer. A big part of that is due to a lower risk in cardiovascular disease (for taller people).”
The shortest men measure at 160cm from East Timor. The shortest women are from Guatemala, Central America at 150cm.
On the other hand, the tallest men are the Dutch as they measure at 183cm while the tallest women are Latvians at 170cm.
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