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.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Is this taken from a DnD book where they replaced the text that would normally go as “Ogre, Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling”

  • Chart showing average height, but incorrectly scales the entire person instead of just the height, …

    The sin committed here was that the y axis began at something other than zero. If you scaled just their height without fixing the y axis, everyone except the Dutch would look like little clay men getting squished by a hydraulic press.

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    13 hours ago

    Lol why are the british and americans so freaking short. I never understood why 6 foot was such a big fucking deal but apparently in hungary, one if the shortest non-southern nations in europe, its still much likelier that you are 6 foot than in the uk or usa. Yall are shorties, explains all the male insecurities /s

    • Alaik@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      Average for the US is 5’10" apparently, but given our melting pot status id still say it was pretty tall.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 hours ago

      5’9" is average for an American male, a mere 3" shy of 6’. Plus, this graph is not only false, the scale is laughable.

    • tacosplease@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      11 hours ago

      I’m not walking around measuring people… ever since the restraining order, but just looking around it seems like guys here in the US are around 5’10" or 5’11" on average. I’m 6’2" and don’t really feel tall.

      Someone else guessed maybe it’s because of the higher proportion of people from other regions where average height in their place of birth (or parents’ or grandparents’ place of birth) is shorter. Makes sense to me that our immigrants and their offspring could be bringing down average height.

      • wisely@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        I wonder if this is a regional thing in the USA? I’m 6 ft tall and only encountered 4 non-relatives taller than me in the past 20 years. Most don’t even come close to my height.

        It’s so rare that I remember them to this day despite just seeing them in passing. 3 of the 4 were when traveling across the country.

      • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Maybe there is something to it but the uk for example has really low immigration and where i libe now in sweden, like one fourth of the population is recently immigrated people and even the immigrants are taller than youd expect tho there is a lot of mixing between people. I also think the immigration from for example the balkans could have actually pushed the average height up because croatians, serbians and even more so bosnians are tall af.

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Yes, the height of black and white men averages close to 5’10" here, and the height of black and white women around 5’5" I think, we do just have a lot of everyone here, except apparently not Dutch?

        My husband & I are both about 5’9" and he says he feels dead average because sometimes he goes out and is taller than all the guys he passes, and sometimes goes out and is shorter than all the guys he passes, but usually doesn’t notice, I feel tall because I don’t notice if all the women I pass are shorter than me but really notice if many are taller than me.

  • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    12 hours ago

    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?

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 hours ago

      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.

      • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        I figured it would be hard to determine statistically, but figured it was worth mentioning for consideration.

        The UK has a population that’s 72% British/Irish. The Netherlands has a population that’s 74% Dutch.

        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.

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 hours ago

          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.

          • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 hours ago

            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".

      • breecher@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        Shit Americans say.

        There are more than 600 ethnic groups[2] in the multicultural Indonesian archipelago, making it one of the most diverse countries in the world.

        Source

        • Soulg@ani.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          9 hours ago

          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

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 hours ago

          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.

      • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        9 hours ago

        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?

        • serenissi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          If anything it says with increasing diversity height gets closer to global average which seems pretty reasonable.

          • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 hours ago

            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.

            • serenissi@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              11 hours ago

              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).

              • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                9 hours ago

                Ok, so I understand that but how does this fit in:

                Ethnic diversity is higher in US than in Indonesia.

                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.

                If anything it says with increasing diversity height gets closer to global average which seems pretty reasonable.

                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?

    • fenrasulfr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Considering that the Dutch were below average before the second world war, I think your hypothesis is wrong. I think they were just compensating for being tiny during that time.

      On a more serious note, I just think the Dutch had zero scruples (inventors of modern capitalism and all).

      They just didn’t care how many people they screwed over aslong as they could get one more Gulden in their pocket.