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all 47 comments
[–]dickpenguinAntarctica 8 points9 points10 points  (0 children)
Is it due to the massive famines and long running malnutrition having an impact on our genes?
[–]gerbte 9 points10 points11 points  (0 children)
Malnutrition of 38% children and undernutrition of 90%+ of Indians
[–]User_Name13Punjab 21 points22 points23 points  (18 children)
It's all the malnutrition in India.
India is home to the highest number of stunted children in the world. There are 48 million children in India right now that are considered to be stunted. It is due to lack of clean water and toilets.
Nigeria and Pakistan rank 2nd and 3rd in the world in stunted children with 10.3 million and 9.8 million stunted children in each country.
Now comes the part that everyone will downvote me for.
It's because we are overpopulated.
Whenever I'm in India I'm blown away by the height differences between Indians from state to state.
Certain states, due to their massive populations, have such widespread, long-term, multi-generational, malnutrition problems, that they are much shorter than their counterparts in other states.
According to this article from June of this year, Punjab is the tallest state in India.
FTA
The average guy in Punjab has a height of 168.6 cm which is around 5'6.4" and an average Jharkhandi lad has a height of 162.7 cm which is around 5'4".
It's because Punjabi food is so rich in calories, also Punjab has never had a population problem, and there's no history of widespread starvation or famines in Punjab.
[–]ymmajjet 8 points9 points10 points  (5 children)
It's all the malnutrition in India.
Nutrition is definitely one of the key factors however, it doesn't explain why people living in the UK have lower average height. It's probably our genetics.
[–]iVarun 2 points3 points4 points  (2 children)
The graph shows that the younger generation has higher height than the previous one.
It takes time for average height of a community and other physiological factors to show up in a significant way.
The Dutch went from being the shortest people in Western Europe to the tallest in over 150 years. It takes time for a group to undo the damage/lag of centuries.
[–]pacifichoe 1 point2 points3 points  (1 child)
w up in a significant way.
The Dutch went from being the shortest people in Western Europe to the tallest in over 150 years. It takes time for a group to undo the damage/lag of centuries.
what led to such phenomenal growth ?
and how true is that flood theory, that those who were not tall enough to see the flood coming died. sounds too funny
[–]iVarun 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
There are a few articles and studies on this. Here is a brief article.
It suggests in addition to great diet (which i think is pretty obvious and primary condition) it could be socio-cultural as in taller people had more children and since height is a heritable trait (i.e. its Nature-Nurture bias is geared more towards Nature/Genetics) it means over time of having multiple generations most of the population will be tall.
[–]wethepeoe 6 points7 points8 points  (1 child)
many generations of malnutrition impacting genes.
[–]ymmajjet 4 points5 points6 points  (0 children)
generations of malnutrition impacting genes
It's actually a well studied theory called thrifty gene hypothesis. It explains why certain population groups have high incidence of diabetes.
[–]DRMOOMOO420Jammu & Kashmir 2 points3 points4 points  (0 children)
You can't deny that Pakistanis are also genetically taller (at least Punjabis and Pathans)
[–]Laboe 3 points4 points5 points  (0 children)
Looking at the "most stunted children" in the world is misleading, because India has a much bigger population than either Pakistan or Nigeria. A better measure would be as a percentage of its children. It is still shockingly high in India but still lower than in either Nigeria or Pakistan.
A small nitpick, as I agree with your overall points, but important to highlight. There has also been a lot of progress on this lately.
[–]rollebullah 0 points1 point2 points  (1 child)
can you quote the average height for states like kerala and Tamil nadu?
[–]Abzone7n 0 points1 point2 points  (3 children)
I though Keralites are also tall in general?
[–]User_Name13Punjab 4 points5 points6 points  (2 children)
They are, according to this chart, Keralites are 168.3 cm.
Keralites are tied for 2nd tallest Indians, they are tied with J&K. So Keralites are only .3 cm shorter than Punjabis. Very small difference.
[–]BajiRao2 1 point2 points3 points  (1 child)
What is shocking from that chart is that Uttar Pradesh & Bihar are on average 1 to 2 cms shorter than Maharashtra, West Bengal & Tamil Nadu.
So much for tall Indo-Aryan genes vs short Dravidian/Australoid genes.
[–]iVarun 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
Out of these only TN is the one which does not have abysmal levels of early Childhood Malnutrition.
UP, Bihar, Orissa, MP are the worse in the country(in fact the world) on this front.
And this is one of the biggest contributing factors to physiological capacity of a person, be it height or just general health in adulthood.
It takes a long time to recover from this. Decades to a century.
Its really not fair to compare different ethnicities like this when the base data/realties are so distorted.
[–]Adhvaga 0 points1 point2 points  (1 child)
Punjab and Jharkhand have almost the same population. Actually Punjab has higher population density than Jharkhand. It's the economy, not population, that results in malnutrition. Punjab's per capita income is more than twice as much as Jharkhand's.
[–]User_Name13Punjab 1 point2 points3 points  (0 children)
Right, Jharkhand is overpopulated in relation to its GDP. Punjab is not overpopulated in relation to its GDP. Punjab's population is proportionate to its GDP, whereas Jharkhand population is too high in relation to its respective GDP. If Jharkhand manages to double their GDP, and kept their current population of 31 million, they would no longer be overpopulated.
[–]execatMaharashtra -1 points0 points1 point  (0 children)
India is home to the highest number of stunted children in the world.
Facts like "India/China is home to <insert any subset> in the world" don't surprise me anymore. Collectively they are 1/3rd of the world's population.
One argument you can make is that the ratio of stunted children in India is "x" and the ratio of stunted children to the overall population in the US (or Europe or whatever) is "y".
That is more compelling argument/fact than this one.

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Comments, continued...

[–]notsocourageous[S] 1 point2 points3 points  (0 children)
This data is from a survey by PHE in 2010.
[–]abhi16 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
170 U.P origin and smallest amongst all my friend circle.
[–]GoldPisseR 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
Has increased by 2 inches in a decade.Guys are getting taller.
[–]Rudraksh77India 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
Malnutrition and hygiene...
[–]math_emphatamine -3 points-2 points-1 points  (7 children)
next up: tits sizes
[–]1_hot_brownie 4 points5 points6 points  (2 children)
I have seen this survey and actually Indian women don't do great there either, with white women leading the group.
[–]math_emphatamine 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
american women leading, rest of white women are way below
[–]rebelsoul94India 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
maybe that's due to higher rate of obesity in america
[–]PM-me-ur-hairMaharashtra 6 points7 points8 points  (3 children)
Indian women have great boobs tbh
[–]Mutated_Aim 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
INDIAN AUNTIES BEST AUNTIES.
[–]BajiRao2 0 points1 point2 points  (0 children)
Maharasthrian Male, 166 cms. Pretty average in my milieu. South Indians (Keralites, Kannadigas, Telugus) are actually taller than Marathis.
From the graph it seems the 55+ age group in Pakistan was much taller than the present generation which is somewhat evened out with Indians. Goes with the theory that Pakistan has progressively fallen behind in most things since the 1980s.
[–]goataccount -1 points0 points1 point  (0 children)
not much difference between us and pakistani people.
[–]PM-me-ur-hairMaharashtra comment score below threshold-6 points-5 points-4 points  (3 children)
Guys, Pakistanis are taller than us on average, we need to do something about it
[–]notsocourageous[S] 4 points5 points6 points  (0 children)
More proteins for the kids.
[–]apunebolatumerilaila 1 point2 points3 points  (0 children)
inb4 everyone goes and hangs on to the nearest bar
[–]mutharushabh -1 points0 points1 point  (0 children)
Bacho ko complan pilao
[–]bontucomment -3 points-2 points-1 points  (1 child)
TIL Mean height decreases with age
[–]metarzanujane 5 points6 points7 points  (0 children)
I think it actually shows how height keeps increasing over successive generations.
So the newer generation is actually taller than the older ones.
[–]BajiRao2 -5 points-4 points-3 points  (1 child)
Pakistani on average are not much tall when you take into account a numerical majority of the Pakistani population are probably descended from Dalits.
Only the privileged landowning castes in both the Punjabs (Jatts, Rajputs, Aheers) tend to be tall.
[–]DRMOOMOO420Jammu & Kashmir 4 points5 points6 points  (0 children)
Most of us probably have dalit blood
[–]TheElectrozoid -4 points-3 points-2 points  (0 children)
16yo, 186.
edit: Why the downvotes lol
[–]ColoredKarela comment score below threshold-6 points-5 points-4 points  (3 children)
Well shit. TIL I'm way above the 95th percentile for my age range.
[–]MasterApotheosisIndia 1 point2 points3 points  (2 children)
I am in 95th percentile. At least in something I scored 95th percentile.!
[–]Corporal_CavernosaMaharashtra 0 points1 point2 points  (1 child)
Lol same here. So excited!
[–]WHATTHEDAMNHELL -1 points0 points1 point  (0 children)
WHADDUP TALL PEOPLE
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