2009-07-02T12:53:55-07:002009-07-02T12:53:55-07:00America once was the tallest country in the world. People may have once thought of most Americans as resembling John Wayne - a gun toting, horse riding cowboy, who was twice as tall as everyone else in the saloon. These days, Americans aren't the tall, towering nation they once were. This graph shows the average heights of men and women for ten European countries and the United States. While in 1850, <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22817223'>Americans</a> stood about 6.4 cm (2.5 in) taller than most populations, they reached a height plateau after World War II and stopped growing much taller thereafter. This phenomenon gave most countries a chance to catch up by the 1960s and even surpass the American height standard. Norway and the Netherlands are the world's tallest nations on average men are about 3.5 cm taller (or 1.5 in) than Americans; <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22777423'>women</a> are about 4 cm (1.6 in) taller.
In the fields of health, economy, and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropometrics'>anthropometrics</a> height signifies the measure of a population's general well being. Typically taller people are <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22818794?graph%5Bscale%5D=relative'>wealthier</a>, healthier, and live longer; not because they're tall, but because taller people tend to have a <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1005255'>balanced diet</a>, <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/map/22535396?limit_modifier=all&graph%5Blimit%5D=178&commit=%3E'>prenatal care</a>, and a <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1007781'>healthy childhood</a>. The healthy life expectancy in <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/4631372'>Norway</a> is 70 years for men, 74 for women. In the <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/4631430'>United States</a> it is 67 years for men, 71 for women. (Height might even improve your chances of being elected president -- traditionally the <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22780755'>winning candidate</a> is taller.) <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_komlos'>John Komlos</a>, an economic historian at the University of Munich, attributes America's stunted growth to poor diet, health care, and perhaps even misplaced ideology: "In some ways it gets to the fundamentals of the American society, namely what is the ideology of the American society and what are the shortcomings of that ideology. I would argue that to take good care of its children is not part of that ideology." The <a href='http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/05/040405fa_fact?currentPage=1'>height gap</a> doesn't measure Americans capacity to love their children, but average height is an indicator of a population's most vulnerable members' welfare.
<i>Note: The European data shown in this graph is from country surveys conducted between 1989 and 1994, which can be found in the report <a href='http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03014460050044883'>Persistent variations in average height between countries and between socio-economic overview of 10 European countries.</a> The United States data is from the 1998-1994 <a href='http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf'>National Nutrition and Health Examination Survey</a>.</i>
2322Europe: A Head Above the Rest{"format":{"series.default_0.stroke":{"color":"rgb(99, 0, 54)","width":2},"series.default_1.format":{"precedence":1,"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"}},"series.default_0.fill":"rgb(99, 0, 54)","series.default_1.stroke":{"color":"rgb(0, 38, 80)","width":2},"series.default_1.fill":"rgb(0, 38, 80)","series.default_0.format":{"precedence":1,"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"}},"axis.y.format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"},"axis.x.format":{"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"t"}}}KXBb8+VNotT3haQ1KtPtlA==Average Heights for 10 European Countries http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1008201Europe: A Head Above the Rest228173042010-01-08T15:21:45-08:00America once was the tallest country in the world. People may have once thought of most Americans as resembling John Wayne - a gun toting, horse riding cowboy, who was twice as tall as everyone else in the saloon. These days, Americans aren't the tall, towering nation they once were. This graph shows the average heights of men and women for ten European countries and the United States. While in 1850, <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22817223'>Americans</a> stood about 6.4 cm (2.5 in) taller than most populations, they reached a height plateau after World War II and stopped growing much taller thereafter. This phenomenon gave most countries a chance to catch up by the 1960s and even surpass the American height standard. Norway and the Netherlands are the world's tallest nations on average men are about 3.5 cm taller (or 1.5 in) than Americans; <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22777423'>women</a> are about 4 cm (1.6 in) taller.
In the fields of health, economy, and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropometrics'>anthropometrics</a> height signifies the measure of a population's general well being. Typically taller people are <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22818794?graph%5Bscale%5D=relative'>wealthier</a>, healthier, and live longer; not because they're tall, but because taller people tend to have a <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1005255'>balanced diet</a>, <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/map/22535396?limit_modifier=all&graph%5Blimit%5D=178&commit=%3E'>prenatal care</a>, and a <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1007781'>healthy childhood</a>. The healthy life expectancy in <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/4631372'>Norway</a> is 70 years for men, 74 for women. In the <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/4631430'>United States</a> it is 67 years for men, 71 for women. (Height might even improve your chances of being elected president -- traditionally the <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/22780755'>winning candidate</a> is taller.) <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_komlos'>John Komlos</a>, an economic historian at the University of Munich, attributes America's stunted growth to poor diet, health care, and perhaps even misplaced ideology: "In some ways it gets to the fundamentals of the American society, namely what is the ideology of the American society and what are the shortcomings of that ideology. I would argue that to take good care of its children is not part of that ideology." The <a href='http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/05/040405fa_fact?currentPage=1'>height gap</a> doesn't measure Americans capacity to love their children, but average height is an indicator of a population's most vulnerable members' welfare.
<i>Note: The European data shown in this graph is from country surveys conducted between 1989 and 1994, which can be found in the report <a href='http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03014460050044883'>Persistent variations in average height between countries and between socio-economic overview of 10 European countries.</a> The United States data is from the 1998-1994 <a href='http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf'>National Nutrition and Health Examination Survey</a>.</i>