The key years are early childhood -- with those children receiving the best nutrition and suffering the least illness growing the best

America Loses Its Stature as Tallest Country | By Rob Stein | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, August 13, 2007; Page A06
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U.S. adults lost their position as the tallest people on Earth to the Dutch, who average about two inches taller than the typical American. In fact, American men now rank ninth and women 15th in average height, having fallen short of many other European nations.

"Americans, who have been the tallest in the world for a very long time, are no longer the tallest," said John Komlos of the University of Munich, who has published a series of papers documenting the trend. "Americans have not kept up with western European populations."
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"We conjecture that perhaps the western and northern European welfare states, with their universal socioeconomic safety nets, are able to provide a higher biological standard of living to their children and youth than the more free-market-oriented U.S. economy," Komlos wrote in one of his latest papers, published in June in the journal Social Science Quarterly.
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Komlos's most recent analysis excluded Hispanics and Asians to try to eliminate the effect of immigration. In another paper that has not yet been submitted for publication, Komlos produced similar findings examining military records that enabled him to exclude people whose parents were born elsewhere to further account for immigration. And another paper being published soon found identical trends among children -- height stagnated among children in the United States for several decades beginning in the 1950s but continued to increase among Europeans.

"That explains why the western Europeans overtook the Americans," Komlos said.

Height is considered a bellwether of a society's well-being. As wealth increases, often so does height. Wealth usually improves nutrition and medical care, enabling people to reach their maximum growth potential and live longer. The key years are early childhood -- with those children receiving the best nutrition and suffering the least illness growing the best. ...