Talk:Human height

Germany

Are there any recent studies out there for measured heights for the German population? It seems to be one of the few European countries on the list for which we're still using (unreliable/dubious) self-reported heights. --Criticalthinker (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Argentina New Average

I enter in the wikipedia in spanish and i found a new average for argentina, 176,4 cm for mens 164,7 cm for womens, 21, measured, 2007

If somebody can fixed this i will be very thankfull

I couldnt find that anywhere in the source. It seems believable, but it just isn't there. The study is about adolescents and doesn't seem to give any figures other than those for ages 10 through 19. —Soap— 22:54, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

russia

why there is no russia in the Average height around the world table. i have a book, and there standing that russian people are approximately 1.68.

others are:

• Saraneger (tchad) - 1.82 m
• Scots - 1.79 m
• Scandinavians - 1.75 m
• Cheyenne natives - 1.74 m
• English people - 1.73 m
• Germen - 1.68 m
• Russians - 1.68 m
• Italians - 1.66 m
• French - 1.66 m
• Spanish people - 1.62 m
• Japanese - 1.58 m
• Aymara - 1.57 m
• San - 1.43 m
• Pygmys - 1.39 m

-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 10:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Scots were 1.66m, English people were 1.68m, Germans were 1.73m. 58.138.55.55 (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Who cares about how tall people are.

I'm 6 foot an a half, anyway I consider 5'8" as average. An 6'3" barely normal 6'4"- 6'5" abnormal but not that bad, who cares about being a little beyond 6'3"

6'6" to 6'8" very tall, and 3 inches after that 6'9" to 6'11" is wicked tall but is very rare as well in americans.

6'4" to 6'5" isnt as rare as most people think it is, theres not many that tall but anyway its kind of rare finding it but not as much as most people think, but screw it, and what are the odds of seeing any men around 6 foot 7 inches tall. An around 6'10" you might not see once in your whole life because its very rare.

I'm 6ft which is normal tall k enuff of boring height talk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psa123456789 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Standard Deviation Request

I would really like it if someone included a chart or section for standard deviations of height. The article says what the average height is, but not what the average standard dev is. I have been looking all over the internet and found very little info on this subject. Perhaps I am bad at the google. Like it would say what percent of the population is taller than 6'5, what percent is taller than 6'6, ect. It should look like a bell curve, but I could be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.84.200 (talk) 23:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Boxing

Height is a huge advantage in boxing and other contact sports. Okay to make a section on it under sports? 86.46.105.13 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:48, 10 April 2010 (UTC).

I would think it would be an interesting addition, but keep in mind the interplay between height and weight, ( a 5'8 160 pounder liable to be much more solid than one is is 6'3") as well as the disadvantage the tall might have with a swarmer like, for example, the bull like, short tyson, who with feet set could swing at a chin with all the leverage of his legs once he got inside against a a tall opponent who had to swing awkwardly down at him with nothing but the power of his arms. I'm not trying to write it for you, I don't know enough, just keep in mind that heists advantage may be nullified by other factors and write a good piece. Cheers. 75.191.151.75 (talk) 05:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Measurment conversion must be broken

It seems to be mis-caculating metres into feet. E.G picking the very top country listed, Argentina, it says their 1.745m is 5"8 when it's actually 5"7. It seems to add a few inches at random for every country listed. I also noted in a topic below it states Ireland's 1.774m is 5"10 when it's really 5"8. So Argentina gets an added inch through miscalculation and Ireland gets an extra two inches. There's no pattern in that. Starting to think this automatic converter isn't such. 86.43.202.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC).

The rounding is indeed, far too much for this to be a serious list, but you're doing your conversions incorrectly. You're probably doing decimals, which aren't inches. 1.774m really is 5'10".--Criticalthinker (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't really have a full grasp of it all but googling "1.774m to feet" converts it to 5'8" 86.46.110.92 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC).

No, you're still not doing it correctly. 1.774m may very well be 5.8" (feet), but American imperial measurements aren't metric, obviously. 1.774m, again, is 5'10". We don't have a system of tens. There are twelve inches in a foot. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

1.774 m is one thousand seven hundred seventy four meters. Logic: in centimetres: 177.4 = 177 centimetres, 4 milimetres. --Jolo Buki Original (talk) 12:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You guys just don't get it, and I find a lot of people from nations that use the metric system don't get it. Our system, Imperial, is not measured in incremenets of ten. That is to say that ten inches don't equal one foot. Twelve inches equal one foot. 177.4 is 5 feet, 10 inches. I really don't know how to be any more clear about it. --Criticalthinker (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

There's definitely a bug with the conversions. It's displaying the Vietnamese women's average height as "4 ft 12 in" when it ought to just read "5 ft" in that case. Google gives a result of 4.99 ft for 1.522 m. Typing "4 ft 12 in" in any context is just retarded. It's like typing "2 m 100 cm" (instead of "3 m"). The algorithm needs to be fixed. 97.102.221.65 (talk) 23:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Turkey

Hello.The list is managed with different countries. I dont understand why only Turkey is in the list with a city. What is this for a nonsense that there is a value for each town in turkey. What comes tomorrow? The United States with the human heigts of New York and Chicago, or what? Result, the article clearly lost objectivity. It would be nice, if someone of you guys would change this.Another point is, that the source Hürryiet for the values of Turkey Izmir are totally grabbed from the air. The magazine Hürryiet is famous in Turkey for beeing a gossip magazine.So it is not the right source for wikipedia.thx and greetings --Frankfurterz (talk) 01:10, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

US racial & ethnic heights?

Is it necessary to list separate heights for the main racial & ethnic groups in the United States section? Is it? Why not just list the average height of the average US citizen regardless of race or ethnicity? Zukabovich (talk) 04:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It is the only country where this is being done. Many more countries have different ethnicities and races. I agree with your proposal. Bambo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 21:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It is for the precise reason that these separate measurements produce separate results. It is a point of interest and should not be ignored. Either way, in the first of its entries the combined average is given; different ethnic groups mean different gene pools which make interesting statistics. The point is that in most of the other countries or regions, there tends to be a dominant ethnic group composing over 80% of the population. However, if you could split the ethnicities and produce results within the countries, the new findings can be added to paint an even clearer comparative picture. To be honest, Germany's tall average would certianly be lower if it were meant to include the non-German ethnics - namely the Turks who exist in their millions. It is not racist in any way but no Turk will be measured with the purpose being to contribute to a final German average. But going back to the US, the findings are very intersting indeed. I never would have guessed that Black Americans were on average shorter than White Americans. Black Americans absolutely dominate the tall-person sports such as basketball, but also American Football. But then maybe this was the source of my original stereotype; these are a selection of individuals unlike those composing the bulk of the US population who may, as it happens, he slightly shorter than the White American. I can't see scores of 2-meter plus White Americans, but then with Blacks originating from all sorts of backgrounds in Africa there may be many shorter blacks living in the States alongside these giants. That is why the extra information is essential. Evlekis (talk) 19:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you a retard, I think your a retard.Those abnormally tall basketball players have growth hormone problems and are hardly the norm for any population group, especially not blacks.Like you said you formed a stereotype from what is on the television.

What are you talking about? American "whites" come from so many different backgrounds that only an American idiot think the term has much value to refer to a group in these terms. Koon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.159.75.213 (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Zukabovich, I think is a mistake to include the ethnic background. Dominant ethnic??????????????? LOL. That is plain ignorance, please you should study more. What about Brazil or Argentina? Give me a f break. The only height that matters is the one that includes all citizens, and most countries in the world don't catalog their own people by ethnic background. Anyway, Cheers! 201.254.98.59 (talk) 20:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism?

This source establishes the height for Spain, age 21, at 1,78 for males, 1998_2000.. Well, someone erased it and left a source that was different and self reported. Is this a joke?

I have reintroduced the source and the data but do not know how to format it well. Maybe someone can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 21:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/salud/ninos/espanoles/han/crecido/media/centimetros/anos/elpsalpor/20020618elpepisal_4/Tes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 21:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

And if more recent data were available they must have grown even taller, then the trend is very strong as this British journalist has realized:

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12501087

From there I cut and pasted this:

"The improvement in Spaniards’ lives is instantly visible. Many elderly people are short, stunted by the hunger they suffered as children in the hard years of fascist autarky after Franco won the civil war of 1936-39. Young Spaniards are strikingly taller than their grandparents, exemplified by Pau Gasol, who measures seven feet (2.13 metres) and was voted the most valuable player when Spain won the latest world basketball championship."

Anyway those are the most recent data that I have found concerning a very big study carried out over 4 years all over Spain between 1998 and 2000. At the rate young people are growing in Spain, 21 year old people should be well above 1.80 in the case of males in 2010, then as the article states, by 2000, young Spaniards had grown a stunning 10 cm. in 16 years, since 1984, but as said I do not know of more recent, big, serious and measured studies. Bambo.

A user has deleted again the data that have stood here for months, just introducing another and cherry picking it for whatever reason. I have reintroduced the article from 2002. It is from one of the most prestigious newspapers in Spain and makes reference to the most important study carried out lately in Spain, with precise data about height and weight. On top of that, it is based on measurements not on reported height. So, if you want to leave both, it is all right, but you have no right to delete this contribution that has stood here for a long time, on top of that. Bambo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 10:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, Italo, I have seen that some countries have two entries, so you may leave both sources. I do not do it because I am not familiar with editing yet. Bambo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 10:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

THIS STUPID DATA KEEP BEING CHANGED FOR MALE INDIAN HEIGHTS...I checked the SAME SOURCE LISTED and it states that male heights are 5'5.5 inches. STOP CHANGING IT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Surag198 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

United Kingdom 1.940 m (6 ft 41⁄2 in) 2.605 m (8 ft 61⁄2 in) 25+ Measured 2007 [61] Are you joking !!!--94.68.173.69 (talk) 14:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Darck

The Korean male height data appears to be off by two orders of magnitude. I think someone moved a decimal point over by two places.89.216.157.56 (talk) 19:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Chinese male height has been vandalized. This article should probably be restricted. --Jmcdon10 (talk) 17:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Age range of a few countries

Does anyone know if there is any newer height data for NZ- the most modern I can find is 1993!Sam568 (talk) 09:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Countries such as Azerbaijan, Finland, Southy Africa and England include those of a younger age than when growth is complete (for males at least). Finland and South Africa uses 15+ while England and Azerbaijan use 16+. Most males haven't finished growing at 15 or 16 years old, so the "adult height" figures are going to be inaccurate. Males on average stop growing at 17 years old when their epiphyseal (growth) plates fuse at this average age, so at 15 and 16 (ages 15 and 16 is the decceleration period of growth, in most males), although the growth tends to have slown down from the peak reached on average at 14 years and is near complete, they have not yet reached their full adult heights. So it should be 17+ at the very minimum, if not 18+, due to 18 being an actual adult. I'm fairly certain that in the above 4 listed countries 15 and 16 (and also even 17, even though 17 year old males tend to be physically mature) are still classed as children, so it doesn't make much sense to include them in adult figures.86.153.24.174 (talk) 14:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with you. Recently I read nutritionals studies which states that, well-nourished youngs grows quickly but stop growing soon. In countries like UK, young boys aged 16 or 17 have almost reached their final height, but in countries with nutritional problems, young people grows slower, and people doesn't reach the final height until 20 or even more.

The big problem of this table is it doesn't present a standard methodology, some countries are listed with ages of young people, other with adults and other with the older people. Don't forget that from the age of 50, humans loses height, so we should also exclude people over 50 years old.

Would be better if we have data for adults of 18-50 years old from all countries.--Italodal (talk) 22:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I changed the data of Finland, England and South Africa to others age groups. I can't find data from Azerbaijan, Malawi and Cameroon which also use height of people below 17.--Italodal (talk) 23:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I do not agree with any of this and added the 16+ numbers back for the UK, accordingly. Many nation's measure from 16, so for those that do the numbers are consistent. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I've requested mediation. Please answer to it. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:00, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

16 years old boys aren't adults, and they didn't archive their final height. The table clear says that is a adult height table. From the age 16 to 17 boys still growing fast. At 17 in most cases the growth slow down and even stop. You can see this in the charts tables, the average height of 16 years boys are lower than boys at 17, but the boys at 17, 18, 19 etc have almost the same height. In countries with food deficit boys grow slower, but the growth goes up to 20 years or more, in some cases. This isn't the case of UK, we clear can see it in the height table of the source.--Italodal (talk) 14:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Be sure, we can settle this in wiki arbitration. This is just ridiculous. So, it is all right to keep heights of the shrunken elderly and factor them into all-adult stats, but we can't factor in 16 year olds? Yeah, this can go to wiki arbitration. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's not start an editing war here. This argument is based on actual facts, not one person's opinion. Criticalthinker, it is only a minority of nations that measure people from the age of 15 or 16 and include them in the "adult height" figures (and rightfully so, since they are still growing, and aren't classed as adults in most legal systems). So if anything it can be argued that this will make comparisons with other countries inconsistent (we are talking about males here, who stop growing later on average). As Italodal said, if you look at the average height of a 16 year old boy and compare it to that of a 17 year old, you will see that there is still quite a bit of a difference, but if you look at the averages of males aged 17, 18, 19 and above, you will see that the heights are much more consistent, with very little difference, if any. This is because the average male is still growing at the age of 16, but stops at 17, which is when most complete puberty and the human growth cycle. As mentioned before, in average males growth starts to taper off at 15, is still continuing this process at 16, and is complete at 17.

On a side note, Criticalthinker, I thought the age of majority (i.e., adulthood, when minority ceases) in England and Wales is 18? So by that definition 16 year olds are still children... 217.42.93.179 (talk) 16:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there an edit war on about how to show heights in US Customary/Imperial?

As per title.

Sometimes it's e.g 6'9", sometimes 6' 9", sometimes 6 ft 9, soometines 6'9, sometimes 6 ft 9 in, sometimes 6 feet 9 inches, sometimes 6 ft 9 inches, and so on. (I choose 6'9 as an arbitrary height, not saying those examples are all present, but those forms are all present.) Really this does need to be made consistent (and the ' " is not as per WP:MOSNUM), but I think best not to start changing them until there is consensus on the preferred format in this article. SimonTrew (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Cricket

Sorry if this has been done before, but the cricket section has US Customary/Imperial first. There seems no good reason since most Cricket-playing countries use metric, although I believe the length of the wicket is still 1 chain i.e. 22 yards (not its equivalent in metres), though could be wrong. Unless there is good reason not to, I propose to invert it to put the metric measurements first. Any objections? SimonTrew (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

While many cricket playing countries use metric, English commentators still commonly use imperial units. They also report the scores differently. It a very traditional sport. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.22.157 (talk) 05:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Can we mention that lower stature is an advantage in batting because fewer LBW dismissals may be given when the knee roll of the front pad is used by umpires to approximate the height of the stumps Safetygooner (talk) 13:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be a contradiction where in this section it states "and Sunil Gavaskar 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)" but on Sunil Gavaskar's wikipedia page it states: "Height 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m)"

Cleary one is incorrect.

american football

why does this interrupt the sports section? Shouldn't it have the same level of indentation or whatever it's called as the other sports? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.146.124 (talk) 09:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Where did the entry for Taiwan go?

I think this is a reasonable question. It doesn't matter which countries consider Taiwan to be a country or not. Hong Kong is listed. Specific regions, provinces, and demographics are listed for a variety of countries. So who took off the data for Taiwan? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.74.85.16 (talk) 04:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Tallest people in the world??

The source used to back up that the serbs have a average height of 1.86 m. isn't credible. The link provided uses as a source this same wikipedia article but from the year 2007. That data should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andreas1991 (talk • contribs) 06:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It has been fixed by yours truly. Wigert (talk) 18:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Its been known for long that the Tutsi (Batutsi, Watutsi) people of Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo) are the tallest on the planet as an ethnic group. Having seen them myself, I can attest to the fact that a typical male can easily reach above 7ft 8in (I am 5ft 11 1/2in myself), with some people setting their average at almost 8ft, which becomes credible when you walk among them. If you watch any video about this people you will immediately see how extremely tall they are by simply comparing their proportions and the surrounding objects. User tomrodz 18:59 23 June 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.254.52.239 (talk) 23:04, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Croatia

Does anyone doubt the number and source given for the Croatian heights? It seems awfully low when you consider all of the extremely tall people in the country that you'd think would be enough to produce a higher average. I'm very skeptical. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The given source addresses average population height in Croatia. Both children and old men were included. Average height of males between 20 and 40 years old is above 180 cm. Krizanic (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The page clearly states that those measured were "adults". If you can read the source and see that children are included in the numbers, than it needs to be removed, as we don't include any height where children are also measured. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If you follow the source (15), the second sentence reads: Measures were taken on almost 31,000 Croatian citizens, including newborns and people up to 82 years old (Croatian: Uzete su mjere gotovo 31.000 hrvatskih građana od novorođenačke dobi do 82. godine). But all that is irrelevant since almost every listed average height has a different age range. Cheers! Krizanic (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not irrelevant at all. Many of them have different age ranges, but we decided long ago that this is a list for adults, only, as children are still growing. Remove it.

I noticed it when it was added some weeks ago and you're all correct, it is very shady. It is useless producing a combined height for all adults, not only because each generation grows but because older people lose their original stature. The source does point however that variation exists and that Split has the highest average. I find this hard to believe because even though I have been to Split and seen that the people there are mostly tall, I did not think - and still don't - that they are taller than Croatia's hinterland population, such as in Drniš. Drniš by comparison is very small but it shouldn't matter to averages. The tallest, I am told (and have reason to believe), are those of the hinterlands between the Adriatic and Bosnia's western border - overflowing into Bosnian Krajina. Either way, Split is surely a misleading example given its status as the eastern Adriatic's capital and Croatia's second largest city: the population is very mixed coming from all over Croatia and surrounding countries. That said, I see people from Split are slightly taller than Šibenik which is in turn slightly taller than Zadar (though Zadar's folk are still mostly very tall) but it is probable that from Split southward (including Bosnia's Neum), the height seems stable down to Dubrovnik and eventually over into Montenegro. This leads me to another point that the inclusion of the Dinaric Alps as the tallest measured race does partially include Croatia and a note needs to be added explaining this detail. That said, I don't believe that true Zagreb and Slavonia folk are that tall - I would have even said they are short. So the male figure of 1.76m is possibly accurate given the density of Central European Croatia (including the northern Adriatic areas such as Istria) and the sparse character of the Dinaric regions including hinterlands where the tall averages are found. Evlekis (talk) 21:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"If you follow the source (15), the second sentence reads: Measures were taken on almost 31,000 Croatian citizens, including newborns and people up to 82 years old." this doesn't make any sense. if you have 100 cm tall 10year old( not to mention newborns) and 190 cm 25 year old, average height would be 145cm. it's not! it's 176 cm for male croatians and for younger croatians same study says it's 179 cm. same study also claims that average height for dalmatians is 179 cm(male).younger ones are also taller but it doesnt say how exactly tall are they. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.33.82 (talk) 06:28, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

1.79m is a very tall average for the entire male population (of Dalmatia). But why was the Croatian entry removed along with its valid source? Evlekis (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

South Croatia is part of Dinaric Alps - average is 185.6 cm (2005.). I am from south Croatia.

--89.201.238.53 (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Formatting

Anyone else not happy with the new formatting of the list? To have the meters convert back to imperial only to the nearest half-inch is deceptive and not accurate. Let's keep the use of decimals for BOTH measurements. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Really, this isn't working. The conversion is yielding results of 4'12". Turn it back to where we can manually convert from metric to imperial instead of this auto conversion which doesn't just look jumbled and aesthetically pleasing, but isn't converting to imperial measurements, correctly. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Come on, does anyone agree? Speak up. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous; now someone's gone and fucked with the formatting even further pushing all of the numbers outside of their respective boxings. Stop touching shit if you don't know what you're doing. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Is anyone ever going to take care of this? This rounding up or down by a full half-an-inch for the imperial heights is ridiculous. Let's reformat the chart to how it used to be where this stuff was done manually which result in more precision. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:06, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Prediction formulas

The article mentions several factors for predicting a child's height in adulthood, but does not give any specific formulae. Should the more popular ones be mentioned? Two examples I am aware of:

• 1⁄2 (Mother's ht + Father's ht) ± 2 in  (+2 boy, −2 girl)
• (Height at age 2) × 2

— Loadmaster (talk) 16:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The formula is usually given as

Male child Ht cm =(Father Ht cm + Mother Ht cm)/2 + 6.5 cm

Female child Ht cm = (Father Ht cm + Mother Ht cm)/2 - 6.5 cm

this is for US population

More accurate would be to use a an additional calculation for regression towards the mean. Empirically this is two-thirds (2/3) of the difference between predicted height (the formula above) and average male/female adult height.

Additionally, there should be some mention of Bone Age height prediction using the Baley-Pinneau formula (which requires a tabular lookup so not so easy to display, but should point to bone age article).Pmarshal (talk) 00:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Poor conversion math?

Why are there listings of 4'12"? Someone doesn't know their inches from feet... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.87.224 (talk) 13:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I had asked the same question two topics above. I hate the new formatting. The old one worked, if even it required manual conversion. Thew new system automatically converts, and not only gives us thing like 4'12", but it also only counts in half-inches, when some of these heights are so percise that it'd be bad if it even counted in quater-inches. We need to have this list reverted back to the old format to get inches counted just a precisely as centimeters. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

spam

spam on article and can't edit because of account requirement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.240.22 (talk) 00:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Irish height can not be accurate

The average Irish male can't be 5"10. I'm 6"3 and I'm shoulder over everyone when walking through most crowds. I saw a non-self reported height measurment saying 5"7 or 8 is the average height. If there's a better study that isn't done by the country itself then I think that's a safer one to use.

Hell, this a country where most people consider 5"10 to be tall. Well just saying it seems fairly exagerated that's all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.70.107.151 (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been skeptical of the Irish average height listed, here, myself. But, it seems to be properly sourced, and since we can't find another one to properly cite, then there isn't much that could be done. I actually inquired to the Irish health ministry about this, and they said they didn't have this information. Hmmm...--Criticalthinker (talk) 08:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

searching brings up a number of sources listing Irish height between 5"6 to 5"8, which seems more accurate to me. The only sources indicating 5"10 seem to be word of mouth i.e Yahoo answers and Wiki answers. 86.47.7.45 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC).

86.47.7.45 (talk)

This issue seems to touch on a problem with many of the height's reported, the ages. Most of the taller than most of us see heights reported seem to deal with the younger generation and may represent only them rather than the population at large. 75.191.151.75 (talk) 05:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm gonna have to disagree. I'm a 5'8 male, and the majority of my male friends are taller. And not only slightly. To add to that I'm only 16 and none of us have finished growing....in fact we had an argument over the average height, most claiming it was 6 foot.I know that isn't correct. But Most men of all ages stand taller than me too. And I make sure not to slouch. but anyway..... 5 foot 7? are you f***ing joking me? PS: I am Irish btw not Dutch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.102.241 (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

No. The average height of 16 year olds in Ireland does not go over 5"8, certanly not, that's just silly. And what group of teens stand around talking about the average height in the country any way? For that matter, there's very little growing left to be done at that age, you don't just sprout 5 inches before you're 18. Sorry but you just won't get an honest measure of height from a group of teenagers. Admitably since I moved down to the south of ROI the people do seem taller, but for the rest of the country no way is 5"10 close to the average.

To top it off the source given for Ireland in this article actually states average height to be 5"8 but the height given in the Wiki article contradicts this with 5"10. Also it says the study was done up to 2002 but the actual link only goes up to 1980. I'm not sure how to modify the numbers without messing up the whole article somehow but I think it should be changed to 5"8 in line with the source. Every somewhat reliable source I've found places it between 5"7 to 8 anyway. 159.134.96.67 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC).

Dinaric alps

since when is this a country? french study on which data are based was made in southern parts of croatia and bosnia and herzegovina which are known for tall people but croatia on average is 176 cm for males. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.33.82 (talk) 06:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting article that may be of use for the main article.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6J-4RTW3R2-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1168853777&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e9d4d3248b0a14e4c5dd2cf4ef38d623 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.33.213.25 (talk) 19:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Missing

This article doesn't have all the 192 countries listed for human height. --Western Pines (talk) 04:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

1.82 m is not tall anymore

I'm 21 and most of the boys from my generation are either around 1.80 or taller. 84.22.2.204 (talk) 10:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC) Yes, your generation is just a bunch of freaks who eat too much growth-hormone filled fast food. 6' was always considered tall, certainly up to the 1970s in the UK (my brother, 6'1", was constantly told how tall he was) And I doubt that 'most' of the 'boys' from your generation are over 6', the statistics from more reliable sources than this show that that is false.

How interesting... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.225.146.84 (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Was 1.80m ever considered tall? What country are you from? 86.43.202.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC).

EU. 84.22.2.204 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not a country... 86.46.76.221 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC).

It isn't a "union" either. A loose confederation of imbeciles is more realistic. Evlekis (Евлекис) 08:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Interesting forum about Croatian - Dinaric people height

Check it: http://www.celebheights.com/s/Krist-Novoselic-3447.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andreas1991 (talk • contribs) 18:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Normal Distribution

If human height distribution is described by a Normal or Gaussian distribution, average height by itself is pretty much useless for describing the height range for humans of normal skeletal characteristics. (For example, I would expect that dwarfs of various kinds wouldn't be included in determining the averages listed.) The data given should also list standard deviations from the various sources. Most people fall in the plus/minus 3-sigma range, which can't be determined with the information given. The tallest and shortest individuals cited are anomalies that belong in their own statistical classes, e.g., dwarfs or giants. --Virgil H. Soule (talk) 01:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

ALL heights, including the extremes are included in the calculations for average (otherwise the distribution would NOT be normal). Since the extremes, by definition, are very rare, they contribute only a little to affect the average. I can refer you to http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/zscore.htm and specifically to http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/zscore/zstatage.xls for the base standard deviation tables. For example the US data for a 20 year old male: average height is 176.86 cm, and 1 SD is approx. 7.12 cm. The article is somewhat overgeneral and lacking numerical data and should make more references to tabular data either in public domain sources or elsewhere in Wikipedia. I don't think it's necessary to break the article up to deal with the extremes. There are already articles dealing with specific medical conditions leading to extremely tall or short individuals and this article should be used as a generic discussion.Pmarshal (talk) 22:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Concerning the line: An extremely small sample of the population may have been measured, which makes it uncertain whether this sample accurately represents the entire population (for example, one source only measured 4482 males in the US to determine average height of US males from 2003–2006 A sample size of 4482 is actually a rather large sample size for something approximatively normally distributed like height. Even with a crazy standard deviation like a foot or two, the SD of the mean would be well under half an inch. This line should probably just be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.148.244 (talk) 09:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Dubious use of a Journal Article (Shorter Mothers -> Shorter Sons & Taller Dads -> Taller Daughters)

I went over Daniel Nettle's article which was the Journal this Wikipedia entry was referring to when making the claim that "Genetically speaking, the heights of mother and son and of father and daughter correlate, suggesting that a short mother will more likely bear a shorter son, and tall fathers will have tall daughters." (As of Feb 20, 2010) I don't know who put that in but they obviously overinterpreted the journal article. I also read Chatterjee's article (which was also referenced as a basis for the genetic correlation) at my school and only found twin studies that had NOTHING to do with the height of the father having any correlation with the height of the daughter.

I quote Nettle's paragraph that says this (to keep it in context):

"Why the same preference [for tallness] has not evolved among men is not obvious. It may well be the case that there was not, under ancestral conditions, any direct fitness advantage to a woman in being taller than average. However, taller women would have had taller sons. In this cohort, the correlation between mother and son height is 0.43 (n=4725, p < 0.001). This correlation is an amalgam of the genetic and shared-environment components of stature, but there is general evidence that height is highly heritable and polygenic (Chatterjee et al. 1999). Thus, other things being equal, men choosing tall women would have increased fitness because they were thereby designing tall sons. Thus a male preference for tallness in a mate would also evolve, unless there were some fairly direct conuteracting pressure."

The journal proposed the link between mothers and and sons as an aftereffect of their primary study, which was to determine if taller females had better reproductive success (they found that it was the opposite) and in trying to present potential falsifiers, they presented this curious correlation. This is weak evidence at best as the authors never intended for it to be a bona fide argument but instead a lead to whoever wanted to falsify their studies. (statistics nuts out there should recognize the correlation of 0.43 is only suggestive, but by itself is weak and requires further study before it can be useful, the authors even propose that the correlation is made up of many factors that might not be maternal genetics!) please consider this important distinction: they are offering potential reasons for why taller women should have better reproductive success and used a result of the dataset they got from the National Child Development Study to infer a possible reason. But correlation does not imply causation and for any correlation to be stated as "Genetically speaking... blah blah.." misrepresents a tentative connection as a rock-solid one.

If there IS evidence of this connection, please properly reference a reliable source here. I did not remove it only because I thought it would be best to give the rest of the Wikipedians a brief while to find a reference before deleting it (and potentially pissing someone off who is convinced it is scientifically sound). Failing that, we should remove this misleading claim.--Skaaii (talk) 06:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Napoleon's Height

Completely Contradicts the article on Napoleon and is uncited. I'm considering deleting the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.228.106 (talk) 03:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the only sources for Napoleon being 4'11" are early 19th century propaganda. Unfortunately, article is protected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.213.213 (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the part about Napoleon's height because of the above reasons — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smurkst (talk • contribs) 05:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Dinaric "Yugoslavia"

The Dinaric Alps. That's YUGO right? If it is, then say it is, don't beat about the bush "Dinaric Alps". If the country doesn't exist, then say "the former Yugoslavia". How can they be the tallest in the world when they are not even tall at all? The fact is simple, they are southern Europeans. So that makes them like the Italians, the Greeks and the Spanish, dark/Medditeranian tan and shorter than central and nothern Europeans. Was Slobodan Milosevic tall? No, he was about 5'8" and Tito was only 5'6". Radovan Karadzic never looked very big and I can't think of many other famous people from Yugoslavia. And the point is, the Dutch are known to be the tallest in the world, and the British come second. Most English men are well over 6 ft and you don't get many who are not. You may get a smaller average here only if you class women and old age pensioners in the same count. But the young Englishman 16-24, 95% are 6'2" and up. see for yourselves. Carlos Colombia (talk) 19:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC) I am English and 6' 4" tall, which means my eye level is about 6' 0. There are not many places where I have difficulty seeing over the heads in a crowd. The taller people are more eye-catching which may give a false impression.

• Whatever original research you have access to, it gives you no right to remove sourced content and mess up references in the article, as you did with this edit. Drmies (talk) 18:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

My question is, why is the removal of Dinaric Alps still in place as I write this message? Has everyone accepted the wisdom of Carlos Colombia? He has obviously never been to Montenegro or Dalmatia before. As I have, and I live in England, I know whether the average Englishman is taller than the average Dinarian and such a suggestion is laughable. I see no reason for all his namelinking, and Tito was 5'8, not 5'6 (and born in the 19th century), while Milošević was virtually on the way down in all the time he was known; it is reported that his peak was 1.85cm (nearly 6'1). I agree with him however that the English are apparently the height that he gives, but then for some strange reason, all averages are seemingly lower than the appearance each nation generates. It is possible for example (with Dinarians and Dutch) to pass a group of young men, every one of whom is 2.00 or more. If Carlos sees that in England, let him take a photo and upload it. It would still be original research but it would give a few people on Wikipedia Commons something to think about. User:Evlekis (Евлекис) 20:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe the original source was valid for Croatia, not "Dinaric Alps", and about a year ago I switched it to say that, but it seems to have been changed back. —Soap— 23:51, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

It is so funny what one comes across in Wiki. I have been to England, I am 6,4, and most men were way shorter than me. Again, it is so funny to see the exagaration as the example. Even in Holland, that I have visited often, most men are way shorter than me. So, stick to facts and stop talking nonsense. Koon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.159.75.213 (talk) 17:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Changes to cricket

My edit on the cricket players' heights was reverted as vandalism. That was uncalled for as I made the edits in good faith and clearly explained my changes in the edit summary. The reason for changing their heights is that all Test playing nations officially use the metric system, so their heights should be listed in that system first (note that I kept the imperial heights in brackets). If editors are unhappy with this change, could they please explain why. Wcp07 (talk) 02:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Sample growth rate graphic

It indicates that this an an "optimal" growth rate which it is not. The graphic clearly is labelled with "stressor" arrows showing this is an example of non-optimal growth. Either the labelling should be changed or the graphic should be substituted with a 50% growth curve. Also, this is clearly a male growth line (the growth terminates around 18yrs whereas a female curve would terminate about 16 years), but this is not labelled.Pmarshal (talk) 00:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Im not sure what you mean. The term optimal means that it is the growth pattern of a healthy person, which means that it will follow maximum growth at all times, including those of natural stress due to the various growth spurts. However I agree that some clarification as to whether this is a male, female, or combined growth curve would be good to have. It does look more like a male curve than a female, but I wouldnt consider it safe to conclude with no other evidence one way or the other. —Soap— 13:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

In this case "optimal" is used in an ambiguous way. For use in an article, it would generally be better to show an average, neutral, not "optimal" graph, since "optimal" is not a clearly defined, deterministic, concept (is a 6'9" basketball player optimal?), whereas "average" is clearly descriptive. Also, the "stressor" arrows shown are purely arbitrary creations (chosen at random locations for illustration of "non-optimal" growth). I would propose "neutral" 50 percentile (0SD) Male and female curves to best illustrate the differences between sexes. This is clearly a male curve since relatively few females show any growth after age 16-17 (outside of 2SD). Even for a male curve this is unusual since it goes to 20 years (the average, 50 percentile, male curve ends at 18).Pmarshal (talk) 22:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Constant vandalism from the user "Jolo Buki Original"

This user is always puting unsourced and wrong information:

1- Where did the Kazakhstan's data come from? Where is its source? 2- The Chile's height is 1,69 m for men and 1,55 for women as is showing this source at Page 22/48 [1] . It covers entire Chile population, the other data 1,72 m is only for middle class. 3- Where did the map come from? I would love to see a map like this one on this page, however, we can't built a map without any information or any source. Unless you show where it comes from, we can't leave it here.--Italodal (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Measured height : Spain

I purpose to modify the measure of Spanish human height, and to keep only the firts source. Indeed, if we look at the second source, we see that only 4000 persons of the young generations have been measured. So, the comparison seems to be irrelevable with other countries who has measured the height in the whole of the generation (ex : we could believe that spanish people are taller than english one, but it is false). We could for example put the second link in a note wich could refer to the spanish study.

---

Second source has 4000 measures. Whether statistically representative or not it's surely more reliable than first source that has 0 measures. So until a more representative measurement of Spaniards' height is made, second source should be kept. If one source had to be deleted, it's the one that appears first on the table because it is based on self-reported heights and not measured ones.

---

I agree with the second commnet.The source is reliable and considered by all pediatricians as a reference. Besides, the fact that the first user considers 4000 samples as not enough in a study just speaks of his or her little understanding of science and statistics. The artilce is even more interesting because it shows how Spaniards have grown a stunning 10 cm in 16 years, a trend that can be seen in many other countries. It also demonstrates the relationship between gains in height and obesity. A very complete article mentioning clearly its sources. Koon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.117 (talk) 19:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

By the by, this issue was already discussed. Why do some issues need to be discussed over and over again? See frpm a previous contribution:

This source establishes the height for Spain, age 21, at 1,78 for males, 1998_2000.. Well, someone erased it and left a source that was different and self reported. Is this a joke?

I have reintroduced the source and the data but do not know how to format it well. Maybe someone can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 21:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/salud/ninos/espanoles/han/crecido/media/centimetros/anos/elpsalpor/20020618elpepisal_4/Tes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.193 (talk) 21:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

And if more recent data were available they must have grown even taller, then the trend is very strong as this British journalist has realized:

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12501087 http://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/burbuja-inmobiliaria/86367-economist-spain-morning-after.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.77.117 (talk) 20:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

From there I cut and pasted this:

"The improvement in Spaniards’ lives is instantly visible. Many elderly people are short, stunted by the hunger they suffered as children in the hard years of fascist autarky after Franco won the civil war of 1936-39. Young Spaniards are strikingly taller than their grandparents, exemplified by Pau Gasol, who measures seven feet (2.13 metres) and was voted the most valuable player when Spain won the latest world basketball championship."

Anyway those are the most recent data that I have found concerning a very big study carried out over 4 years all over Spain between 1998 and 2000. At the rate young people are growing in Spain, 21 year old people should be well above 1.80 in the case of males in 2010, then as the article states, by 2000, young Spaniards had grown a stunning 10 cm. in 16 years, since 1984, but as said I do not know of more recent, big, serious and measured studies. Bambo.

---

---

To the user above who uses the word scientist without knowing the signification : you can multiply the same sources, it doesn't change a fundamental fact : a sample of young genrations can't be representative of the whole of the population. If you take the same sample in England or in France, the average height will be far taller. The discussion is not about the growth of the population of Spain, which is a fact, like in a lot of countries (take the young japanese, compared to the old ones), but about an average. It is like if you wanted to calculate your average of notes at school by taking only the three most valued notes. It would be false to compare it with the one of another pupil which would have taken all the notes, just because your sample would be wrong.

Otherwise, the low height of the spanish people, and the mediterranean people in general, has few to do with civil war, but with traditional food. The people who used to eat cereals, fruits and vegetables are shorter than the regions who eat more meat and proteins in general. You can verify it on this proper page : french seem to have been taller than the german in the 19th century, probably because of alimentation and level of life.

And I agree that a self-reported measure is not really better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.213.209.188 (talk) 18:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

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I agree with the first user. Spanish people must stop their propaganda. They are short, they must admit it, it's not a shame. Why taking only young men to count the average height ? Mathematically non-sense ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.9.218.87 (talk) 16:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Growing Taller

This article should include that colder countries have taller populations, so, people can grow taller by lowering the temperature in their homes (as kids). EugeneKantarovich (talk) 02:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Try getting a source if you can find one, but good luck. Correlation does not equal causation. You might as well say that Africans can make their children blond by turning down the temperature. 75.191.151.75 (talk) 05:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

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Is there any administrator to banish the spanish troll (IP 77.227.4.252) from the region of Madrid who vandalizes the talk-page ? Wikipedia is not a politic tribune !!!!

Error on "growth" section

The article states that half of human height is determined by the long bones, then says the rest is made up by the cranium. No mention of the spinal column. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.254.90.140 (talk) 06:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Under the heading: Role of an individual's height

there is the paragraph:

"This can also sometimes be translated to the corporate world"

What is "this"? Does it mean that smaller companies self-destruct less often?

David —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.181.58.196 (talk) 03:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It's all far exaggerated!!!

People, are you crazy? How can you believe that the average human height in countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, for example, is at about 178 cm?? There is no way! And I really can't believe why there are researches that give those, obviously, fake results! I live in Greece, I am 180 cm tall, and of course I feel quite taller than the average young Greek man! The average human height in Greece and the rest of the mediterranean countries cant't be more than 174 - 176 cm and I refer to the young generation! Including older people the average height falls even lower. My father, for example, is 173 cm and for his generation (born in 1947) he was considered tall! But also data about countries like the Netherlands, the scandinavian countries and the Dinaric Alps, where the average height is definitely quite higher, I 'm sure that is far exaggerated, too! The average Dutch is tall, but not 184cm! No way! It must be about 178 - 180 cm... That's my height and when I am between northern europeans I feel that I 'm average height, so I think this is the true average height for those countries... In order to make 184 cm the average height in a country, you must have a lot of people being taller or even much taller than that height! So, I don't really think that there are so many people at 190 cm or more even in the Netherlands, Scandinavia or the Dinaric Alps... And, of course, even there you meet short people! So how can we get such a high average height? As for women, the data given seems to be much more accurate in general, although I can't be sure about anything since I mention that kind of exaggeration in almost all stats... And also I see that the sources are not even real! Just check this out! They give an average height and the particular link leads you to a page with a totally different content! What the hell is going on here??? I 'd like to know your opinion guys... What do you think about that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.235.160 (talk) 17:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I partly agree, it is true that 1.78 seems weird for South Europe, however an average of around 1.80 and up can be true in some Northern and Central European countries, like the Netherlands, Czech Republic and such, people there are fairly tall. Don't know about the "Dinaric Alps", it is ridiculous to list that area as a country. I could just the same list the Masai tribe or the LA Lakers with an even taller average. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.172.84.115 (talk) 00:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Problems of samples : the study about the Spanish peoples concerns only young men. It is obvious that the Spaniards are typically Mediterranean people with a short height. If you take the same samples about Holland, the average will be probably reach 1,90 m. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.196.38.35 (talk) 21:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm Spanish and I'm 1.792 m tall

It is funny how some people talk about the Spaniards and even the kind of food they eat when they clearly don't have a clue about Spain and Spaniards. I do not need to read the Wikipedia really to acknowledge that being 1.78m tall is normal in Spain because it is a reality that I as a Spaniard can check everyday. I don't know about Greece but I'm 1.79m tall and I don't feel specially taller than the rest, just on average. When I was a teenager and they took group photos of us at school I never was placed among the tallest boys of my age at the last row. So what? Young people in Spain are significantly taller than their parents due to the fact that standards of living have increased a lot in the last 30 years in Spain, not to mention their grandpharents. For example I am taller than my father who at the same time is taller than his father. That says something, doesn't it?. The same happened in other countries like Netherlands. Dutch soldiers during Napoleonic times were among the shortests people in Europe. Statistics usually show up only young people's measures because they are the ones which do the military service and their measures are taken by doctors , not elderly people. I think that some may still believe the cliché about the Spaniards being a race of short people, when in fact it was due to poor standards of living when not true famine due to the Civil war and post-war. End of comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.27.50 (talk) 13:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey friend! you from Spain! I didn't call spanish people a short race, unless you feel any kind of complexity! I just said that mediterranean people in general are shorter than northern europeans! And how can you say that I have no clue about the spaniards? do you know me? I am a professor of spanish language and I know Spain and its people really well! And as for greeks, they 're definitely taller than spaniards no matter what you say! Not that height means anything special, but this is the truth! And if you are 179cm and you feel average, then you must be mistaken... Probably you 're shorter than 179cm... just check it out and measure your height appropriately and with shoes off!

................ Then how come the tallest people in Europe are in Southeastern Europe? because since I went last to school that is where the Dinaric Alps are. More sources and less propaganda or subjective and personal opinions. Bibi.

............

Anyone who really knows young Spanish people (and do not confuse them with the millions of immigrants now residing in Spain) knows that 1,79 cm is pretty much an average height. In fact I would even say that it is beginning to fall on the shorter side of the spectrum. On the other hand two or three generations ago Spaniards were well bellow 1,70 cm. All that is today well documented and sourced. So stop stupid personal impressions and opinions. Bibi.

............. Dear friend it seems that you have no idea about real height! 1.79m is too much to be the average height! Only in Scandinavia and yet among young people could be so. Not in Spain! People who you think they are 1.79m are not that height! You're probably mistaken! You exaggerate about the general height! Take a measure and count it! You 'll see that it's definitely less! Come on! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.166.172.26 (talk) 11:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It makes sense. Spain receives a lot of sunlight so together with proper food people grow very tall. It's like a tree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.158.121.213 (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

---

I agree. I posted about the Irish height being exagerated a good while back. I also find it funny how all the male heights seem to be exagerated as opposed to the female heights which seem undermined to me. Typically male to female height in a country should correlate somewhat, whereas in this article it seems the male heights are much larger and the female heights shortened or unchanged. E.G for Ireland the male height is listed as 5"10 and the female height 5"4 ... that's a pretty big gap right there and not very realistic. More accrurate in my view would be a male height of 5"8 and female 5"4 ... which is what I would assume it to be from living here.

However this is wikipedia and we have to go by the available sources so really our opinions are just hearsay as far as the article is concerned. All I can say is I wouldn't agree with the one about my own country but I'm not a credible internet source.

I would like to hear opinions on this though.

86.46.89.46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC).

Why the hell...?

Why the hell do you erase data from nationwide anthropometric studies (e.g. Iran, Czech republic, Thailand, Dinaric Alps) and fill the table with absolutely worthless "self-reported" values? Why do you do it?! Centrum99 (talk) 01:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Should "Sports" be broken out into it's own article?

Considering this is the single largest section perhaps a new article should be created specifically discussing this topic and the section here be reduced to a jump to the new topic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmarshal (talk • contribs) 10:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

"Invitation to edit" trial

It has been proposed at Wikipedia talk:Invitation to edit that, because of the relatively high number of IP editors attracted to Human height, it form part of a one month trial of a strategy aimed at improving the quality of new editors' contributions to health-related articles. It would involve placing this:

You can edit this page. Click here to find out how.

at the top of the article, linking to this mini-tutorial about MEDRS sourcing, citing and content, as well as basic procedures, and links to help pages. Your comments regarding the strategy are invited at the project talk page, and comments here, regarding the appropriateness of trialling it on this article, would be appreciated. Anthony (talk) 11:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The list of articles for the trial is being reconsidered, in light of feedback from editors, and should be ready in a day or two. If you have any thoughts about the Invitation to edit proposal, they would be very welcome at the project talk page. Anthony (talk) 14:23, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Tallest Man

I removed this

"At 2.57 m (8 ft 5 in), Leonid Stadnyk, of Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine, is believed to be the world's tallest living man, although his height is disputed because of his refusal to be measured."

It well established that Kosen is much taller than Stadnyk. Stadnyk is in the 7' 6" range by most estimates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zimbazumba (talk • contribs) 21:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Fossil Giant of Castelnau

Maybe the article should mention something about the large human bones found in a Bronze age tumulus from Castelnau-le-Lez, France. The discovery was covered in the NY Times, and the size of the bones were about double the ordinary for normal humans. G. de Lapouge estimated the subject at about 3,50 m in height in the science journal La Nature vol. 18, 1890. I just think an article on human stature should mention such a discovery. --75.175.54.134 (talk) 03:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

People growing for unusual lengths of time

I was hoping to find something in this article about the phenomenon of people continuing to grow in adulthood. In my family this happens a lot. My uncle grew 5 inches between graduating high school and the age of 25, when he finally stopped growing. I've grown 3 inches since graduating high school, with the last inch between the ages of 30 and 34. Are there any good sources for this so it could be incorporated in the growth abnormalities section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.213.213 (talk) 03:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

A shame

It's a shame that this article is full of s***. People! this is not a competition, it is an encyclopedia. I've read most of the sources and some of them are a f******* joke. Many have a scientific aproach but others don't. I have and idea, let's write 1,89 for all and everybody happy. 201.254.98.59 (talk) 23:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Or how about let's just list the men at 3,50 and the women at 3,25! --75.175.77.180 (talk) 21:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I've written a small paragraph on "caveats" to the height data explaining why some of the data may be inaccurate. --82.31.164.172 (talk) 07:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Borjomi Giant

Maybe the article should mention something about the Borjomi giant found in 2008 in Georgia. The press account says the giants was nearly 3 meters tall.

Giants 3 Meters Tall Found in Georgia (Caucasus) & France

--75.175.56.126 (talk) 22:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Sports Section Garbage

The entire sports section is original research, and complete garbage. It doesn't need to exist at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.78.81.14 (talk) 00:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Latvia and Pakistan

Who added Latvia and Pakistan? I don't mind that they are added, but you can't add uncited work like that. Find the source of the info and then re-enter it. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Ideal height is 6ft 2 for men and 5 ft 8 for women?

John Komlos, a prominent height historian at the University of Munich, states that the ideal heights are six foot two (1.88 m) for men and five foot eight (1.73 m) for women—because they are the optimum "biological standard of living."

What sort of BS is this? What exactly does "Optimum biological standard of living" really mean? And what qualifies someone to be the optimum biological standard of living? Sorry, but this "height historian" from Germany sounds like he is simply voicing his cosmetic preference as apposed to what is normal and healthy, and I think his conclusions should be challenged in the article. Someone correct me if I am wrong. --75.175.77.130 (talk) 22:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Komlos is an economist who's working well outside of his field here. He's written some papers in which he seems to speculate that genetic height differences don't exist ("except for Pygmies", he says) and that every ethnic group will grow to pretty much exactly the same height if they live in the same societies and eat the same foods. But the website that his papers are hosted on seems to be down now. —Soap— 22:54, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Protect for good

I think this ought to be protected against anonymous editors permanently. They do nothing but vandalize this article with bogus figures. Pristino (talk) 04:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

My ideal solution would be to have the height figures stored in a template and the rest of the page still open to anonymous editing, but it seems a long standing tradition on Wikipedia is not doing that. —Soap— 14:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I have been advocating for an enhancement to ClueBot NG so that it might pick up this sort of edit and revert automatically. (This is certainly not the only article afflicted by such nefarious edits.) It's also possible that we write another bot to revert this specific problem. -- ke4roh (talk) 02:32, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Chile

The Chile data is overkill. You need only two categories just like most other nations: one showing the younger generation (20 and 30's somethings), and one for all adults (as close as one can get to 20+). We don't need five or six different age groups just for Chile. --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you justify the U.S. and U.K. both having five categories each? Are ethnic/national groups more relevant than age groups in your view? Pristino (talk) 01:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

To be quite frank, yes. There is no need for so many age categories. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

EN 13402 (international standard) height

The height according to the EN_13402 standard for men/women from S to XL are not mentioned. Please fix this 91.182.246.156 (talk) 10:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The page is protected now, so that only "confirmed" editors can modify it. What would you want to see added, and ideally, where? Just a link to EN 13402? —Soap— 14:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... someone messed with the Israeli averages :-)

Maybe for political reasons, but that's just a speculation. Anyway, the table now lists Israeli men as 1.73m on average, which obviously can't be true. The source quoted is allegedly the Central Bureau of Statistics, but the said bureau does not hold any such data about human height. If you search the net, be it in English or Hebrew, you will not find any evidence or support to those numbers. There are two reliable sources, one is a research made between the years 1980-2000, with results of circa 1.76m for men and 1.63m for women, but that might be a bit outdated: http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/23/1/51/T1 A more recent data can be found in Dr. Tzvi Tzadik MD's records, he is an expert of growth and height issues and has collected height data since 1977 till the present. His records list average for men as 1.77m and for women 1.66m: http://www.health-pages.co.il/article.php?article_id=1667 Another orthopedic research, though very informal, also refers to 1.77m as the average in a group of men: http://www.e-med.co.il/emed/new/usersite/content.asp?CatID=11&ContentID=165007 That seems to make more sense. As said, there is no 'formal' average, however it is surely not 1.73m :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.172.84.115 (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Longevity

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the statement "Longevity-wise, being tall is a good thing" seems to be in violent opposition to one of the cited works:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/?tool=pmcentrez

which says "we found several studies that showed a negative correlation between height and longevity" and concludes "animal and human data suggest that larger body size independently reduces longevity." — Preceding unsigned comment added by AmigoNico (talk • contribs) 06:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• I tried to fix it. -- ke4roh (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

To Centrum99

Pasted from Dinaric source:

• Our investigation covering 2705 boys and 2842 girls aged 17 years, shows that, contrary to the general belief, adolescents of the Dinaric Alps are, on average, the tallest in Europe. With an average height of 185,6 cm, they are taller than Dutch adolescents (184 cm on average). Above all, the density of very tall subjects appears to be characteristic of the Dinaric Alps, since 28% measure 190 cm or more in height, as opposed to only 20% in Holland and 1.5% in France. Although our information is not complete, adolescent girls in the Dinaric Alps, with an average height of 171 cm come a close second to girls in Holland.

Can you explain where it says that the Dinaric male average is 1.846 and where it states that 1cm has been added on to compensate for unfinished growth? Evlekis (Евлекис) 07:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you know what? Post here your email address. I will send you the whole article. O.K.?

Can you understand that the value 184.6 cm was really measured and 185.6 is a fiction, an estimate? 89.235.44.18 (talk) 23:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I really wouldn't complicate it further. Let's list the measured value 1.846 m in 17-years olds - that's the only data we can use from the article. Everything else is fiction. Centrum99 (talk) 11:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I know what you mean by fiction, that's what everyone else means by "self-reported". The "measured" will outweigh the other. Is that all right? Evlekis (Евлекис) 11:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The use of self-reported data is worthless as well. I would erase everything of this sort from the article. I have a lot of data at hand, by the way, and I can substitute many self-reported values by objective measurements - this concerns Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, and certainly Netherlands (who did include self-reported data, when very representative Dutch samples are available?!). Centrum99 (talk) 18:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have measured Dutch heights, please post them. --Criticalthinker (talk) 07:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Niewenweg R, Smit ML, Walenkamp MJ, Wit JM. Adult height corrected for shrinking and secular trend. Ann Hum Biol. 2003 Sep-Oct;30(5):563-9. 21 YEARS: men 184.0 cm, women 170.6 cm. The data come from a survey made in 1997, but they are still useable, because the secular trend in the Netherlands stopped. The most actual data from 2010 reported 183.8 cm in men and 170.7 cm in women. Centrum99 (talk) 05:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 90.194.74.86, 4 March 2011

Can someone familiar with editing please add a height entry for UAE . 173.4 cm for males and 156.4 for females . Here is a link to the source http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/18/6/295/_pdf . the relevant information is on the 2nd last page (302) . I'm fully aware that the report(2008)deals mainly with children heights but the highlighted averages are those of adults. Thank you very much .

-- Faris 90.194.74.86 (talk) 02:41, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for the contribution! -- ke4roh (talk) 11:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The reported heights are way too short

Average young white men in North America are about 5'11". I tried to add a source but it was removed. SamanthaG (talk) 14:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

5'11? That's 1.82cm, there is no chance of that. That would make white Americans taller than Czechs, Slovaks, Estonians, Swedes, Germans, Danes, Norwegians and Fins. If that were remotely possible we'd know, because they'd be characterised by one giant every handful. Evlekis (Евлекис) 11:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

And even though white Americans may indeed have descent in the above nations and mixtures of them, the majority are British Isles-Americans (UK & Ireland origin). This is why there is only a fraction of a difference - which is in favour of the North Americans. Evlekis (Евлекис) 11:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Евлекис's conjectures may be true. Nonetheless, the claim that 'average young white men in North America are about 5'11"' (or something to that effect) can be justifiably included in this article given that an authoritative source is referenced to substantiate the claim. However, such should probably not replace any of the existing data that warrant inclusion due to being sufficiently substantiated, etc. --82.31.164.172 (talk) 04:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If there is a source then there is no problem. The fact that there had been one removed may suggest that it was not reliable but without seeing anything, I cannot be sure. Evlekis (Евлекис) 07:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually wrote a whole article about height with tons of data but it seems to have been deleted. SamanthaG (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's the reference I tried to add to the article[2]SamanthaG (talk) 14:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Why such a useless debate? NHANES 2003-06 reports 178.9 cm in 664 white Americans aged 20-39 years. As for their origin, you should know that the biggest part came from Germany, followed distantly by Ireland and England. Since Germans are 180 cm tall on average, and people from the British Isles measure about 178 cm, the value corresponds quite well to the source populations. Centrum99 (talk) 05:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I would love to see a scientific study showing white men are 5 ft 11 average. I am 6 feet even, and in many cases feel taller than about 70% of the men I see walking down the street in my West coast American city. If I had to guess, I would say most white guys I see are honestly between 5 ft 8 and 5 ft 11, with younger guys maybe averaging 5 ft 10. So I think the data in the articles is accurate. --75.175.66.161 (talk) 04:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Adding average height on a semi-protected article.

{{Edit semi-protected}} 2010 study gives new figures for average height of Finnish (Finland) males and females.

Males: 180,7 cm, measured in 2010 on people born 1983

Females: 167,5 cm, measured in 2010 on people born 1983

Duodecim

2010;126(24):2799-802

Antti Saari, Ulla Sankilampi, Leo Dunkel

http://www.terveysportti.fi/xmedia/duo/duo99227.pdf
Request:I will do it, if you tell me where it is on the document (I don't speak Finnish)--Breawycker (talk to me!) Review Me! 22:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The data are suspicious. I have results from a nationwide health survey done in 2007 (FINRISK), and it reports 178.4 cm in 434 men aged 25-34 years. I really doubt that even when we take the higher age into account, Finns would grow 2 cm within one decade. I will certainly contact the authors. I think the average 180.7 may concern southwestern Finns, where a local average 180.2 cm was reported in the above mentioned survey. Centrum99 (talk) 05:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

 Not done Since there is opposition to this request, please get consensus first, then resubmit another edit request. Thanks! – Ajl^talk 20:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I contacted the authors and they wrote that the data concerned southern Finns - as I expected. There is ca. 3 cm interregional difference within Finland, between the southwest and northern parts of the country. And the surveys even don't include Lapps, I think. Centrum99 (talk) 02:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

• Netherlands: 6'0"
• Germany: 5'11.5"
• Finland: 5'11" 58.138.55.55 (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

DO NOT USE NEWSPAPERS AS SOURCES

I would like to appeal to all users not to use data from newspapers. It devalues the whole page. The self-reported data are worthless as well. As I already said above, I would erase the self-reported data, and the newspaper sources as well. Centrum99 (talk) 05:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't use self-reported data, especially since the self-reported data is so hard to believe such as an average height of 6'.5" for young men in the Netherlands. SamanthaG (talk) 21:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

There was a direct measure study showing similar heights, conducted by the EU. The actual reported height was 182.5 cm for males, 170.5 cm for females, which translates to just a hair below 6 feet for the men and about 5'7 for women. However the age range was 15-25, so it's fair to assume that the younger specimens were dragging down the average just a little bit. There is also another survey which shows 184.8 cm for men, but I don't know the measurement method. The EU study might not be available online, at least not freely, the second one is here. I havent been editing this page regularly lately and am not sure why those two studies were removed, but it may be due to a small sample size. —Soap— 22:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Self reported. Ha ha. That's basically about as accurate as people reporting their weight on their drivers license, or guys reporting their genital length in a study. They are going to round to the nearest number they like. Most guys who are 5 ft 11.5 are going to claim they are 6 feet etc. In studies which base themselves on cm or millimeters, self reports cannot be considered accurate. Maybe they are accurate to the nearest inch -- but not cm. --75.175.66.161 (talk) 04:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Lyndsay Renae isn't the shortest person ever. Height rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.196.45 (talk) 01:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Enzo Ferrari

• Adolf Hitler was 5'7".
• Benito Mussolini was 5'9".
• Enzo Ferrari was 6'1.5".

58.138.55.55 (talk) 15:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Relevant article / new book

Cohen, Patricia (April 26, 2011). "Technology Advances; Humans Supersize". New York Times. Retrieved April 27, 2011.