GENETICS: Is it just me, or are females catching up to males height-wise?

I know things might be a bit skewed since this is just my experience, but at my school, the average female is about 5'9". I find that appalling considering that from what I've seen, the average guy here is "only" about 5'11 or 6'0.

I understand that proper nutrition and general maintenance has a bit to do with it, and generally women take better care of their bodies than men do (which also explains why they generally live around 5 years longer than us fellas). But genetics-wise, I don't know how women can seemingly gain so much ground on the guys in only a couple of generations.

Are women really catching up? In the 1950's, I understand that a 5'4 woman and a 5'10 man were the norm. Now it seems (I don't have any proof of this) that the average man hasn't changed much, probably still around 5'10 or 5'11, while the average woman has probably gained at least two or three inches during the same span.

For the record, I'm about 5'11 and it amazes me to see so many tall women.

GO 'CLONES!

 

I have no idea. I'm 5'0. Everyone looks tall to me.

 

I'm 4'11". Even Ariana looks tall to me

 

I'm 5'5 and around here that seems to be the average, although I do feel short sometimes because my mom, dad, brother, and sister are ALL taller than me. My mom only by a little, but the rest by a LOT.

 

I'm 6'2. People taller than me scare me.

 

Interesting. I'll toss my anecdotal evidence in as well.

I'm female, 27. I have 1 brother who is 31. Our parents are both in their 50s. My dad, my brother and I are all roughly the same height, between 5'8" and 5'10". My mother is about 5'3".

So my family illustrates your theory beautifully. The male height stayed the same over a generation, while the female height increased by a good 4 or 5 inches to nearly equal the male height.

 

interesting, my family is just the opposite.

my mother and father are about the same height, 5' 8", and 5' 9.5"(dad is 1.5 inches taller), my brother and I are both just over six feet, and my sisters are both smaller than my mother by a few inches, 5'5" and 5' 4.5"

but, i always knew that my family was special.

 

hmm, I think women are getting shorter.

I'm 6foot4, but thats nothing as I hang out with rugby and basketball players who are 4 or 5 inches taller than me

malkie

 

Not that I have seen.
I'm 6'1" and still growing, but I haven't seen many females taller than me.

 

Hmm, here's my anecdotal evidence.

In my family, my great grandmother (on my mother's side) was 4'6"

My grandmother 4'9"

My mother 5'4"

Me 5'8"

My grandfather was just over six foot. My uncles and male cousins are still about 6' 2" (all of them).

As you can see the girl's side of the family is rapidly catching up.

Maybe it also has a lot to do with hormones and genetic stuff put in food. Girls are also maturing earlier and many begin puberty at 10 (and in some cases at 8) rather then 12-16 which used to be the norm.

Kithera

 

I think both males and females are getting taller on average, but the gap between them is less. It would be interesting to see statistics

In my family my mom was 5'8" and my dad 5'9".

I'm 5'7" and my sister is 5'8"

My brother's are 6'1" and 6'2"

The theory doesn't seem to have worked so well in my family

 

I am 6'1" and people taller than me scare me too.

 

I'm 6'6" so my perspective is kinda skewed here, but people have been getting taller for ages.

But those Ukraine women still scare me. Yikes...some of those gals are almost as big as I am.

 

People on the whole are bigger now than when I was younger.

I am 1.9m tall, when I was little (pre 10) people of that height were few and far between. Now, 20 years later, I am no giant, just an ordinary member of the population heightwise.

 

I'm 6'2", and well-built. Anyone taller and wider than me gets a snappy first word. Sir.

Having said that, I dated a girl my height. She, like me, is half-Dutch. From mine, and others, experience, Dutch people are tall.

E_S

 

I fluctuate between 6' and 6'2" depending on how much sleep I've gotten, whether I'm standing up straight, and whether I've been getting enough exercise over the last few days. Generally I hover around 6'1"

Anyway, I have an uncles who's more than 6'6". One of the coolest people I know, too.

Anyway again, I don't know that people are growing that much on average. When I was going through high school, it seemed that the whole damned school was my size; each successively younger year seemed to be bigger than the previous year. But then, I was short most of the way through high school; I was kind of a "late bloomer." Yes, it does seem that there are kind of a lot of tall women out there -- but, pray tell, why do you find that appalling?

 

Well, it's pretty well-known that people, at least in the West, have been getting progressively taller over the past couple of hundred years, owing to better diets, medication, health information and working and living conditions.

As for women getting taller at a rate faster than men? I really would have no idea, at all. I sorta hope not. I'm 6"2', but prefer shorter women (my current girlfriend is 5"5').

- TSB.

 

I don't think genetics would really do anything there. Humanity seems to have moved beyond at least the Darwinistic form of evolution, since we don't willingly allow inferior people to starve to death anymore, although humanity may have a Lamarckian period ahead. I think the average height for a woman in America is something like 5'5", but that figure is a little skewed because it also includes women who immigrated to America as adults.

 

I think females are catching up. Most of the girls I know are much shorter than me.

But three in particular... two being just an inch of two shorter than me (I'm 6"1') and one being the same height or maybe a shade taller... they are all extremely attractive, the tallest the most so. Is this nature's way of making sure that the tall females shall thrive? Make them really hot?

Interesting thought.

 

They aren't catching up around my neck of the woods. There are some tall girls and some short guys, but on the whole the difference remains.

 

A few words:
Growth hormones in food:
"A group of international researchers who met in Copenhagen last year to discuss growth hormones in food, release their report today. According to the report the researchers feel that the use of growth hormones in animals should be reconsidered as it remains unclear what their effect is on the human body and the environment." 29/08/02
http://www.euroaudio.dk/Triple_site/banns/manus_details.asp?UniqueID=24

No it doesn't say specifically, but there has been a clear cancer implication.

Seriously, genetics has very little to do with it. Theories on evolution micro and macro don't support it. And genes really are not the only thing that determines how we look.

Think of dna as a recipe. Only it assumes you already know what temperature and how long you need to bake. Or even that you need to bake. Environment plays a big part (and I mean environment in the more general term than the wide outdoors).

Anyway, there hasn't been any specific selection of tall people breeding to have tall children, nor has there been any geological isolation over several generations.. in fact what we are experiencing is as far from 'natural selection' as you can get we are mixing far more than ever before. Which is apparently going to wipe out blondes within the next 200 years.. though that's not really right. It's not likely that the recessive allele will disappear.

Anyway, just saying enviromental factors such as hormones and nutrition etc are far more likely to be a cause than a change at the DNA level

(BSc grad. in biochemistry with a good dose of anthrophology, genetic and immunology. Mind you that was in 1996 so I have some new research to catch up on )

 

The AP story about the disappearing blondes was discredited by the WHO, who claimed no such study ever was conducted. Apparently many AP stories have been pulled due to an unscrupulous reporter.

 

Funny, I was just discussing this with my fiance yesterday. It's been my experience that at 5'6", I'm usually the tallest girl in the room, no matter where I go. And the 'biggest-boned' as well. Not in the cutsey way of meaning 'fat', but in that I feel I could crush with one big squeeze the ribs of most women I know. And this was true even when I was 30 pounds lighter. They're so tiny, build-wise!

When I was a teen, a friend not-so-jokingly or nicely nicknamed me 'Amazon'. I know I certainly feel like one around most adult women I know.

 

Which is apparently going to wipe out blondes within the next 200 years

That one was discredited as a complete hoax. Where would that slice of the gene pool go, exactly? I think of the entire population of the earth as being modeled by Hardy-Weinberg, so the way I see it, approximately the same proportion of people over time will always have certain traits unless a major selection factor is somehow introduced to humanity (eg. the ozone hole gets big enough that it's a signficant advantage to have dark skin).

 

Ah, blondes will not die out..
Blonde, weirdly enough, is a dominant trait in my family. And we have redheads and black and brown as well for other parents. For some reason, all my cousins and I have blonde hair, instead of the darker colors that the rest of our parents have.
But I still have very blonde natural hair. (I don't dye it)
And I'm 5' 2.75', so the height thing just isn't working for me.