The USA is under 5'4" now? Dang. All those Mexicans and Guatemalans have really brought down the average a ton. When I was in high school the average American female was 5'6". I already made a shortest women quiz, btw.
I remember very distinctly in 1995/6 I was with my first girlfriend who was 5'4". She got mad when people would say she was short and she would insist she was average. We looked it up on the interwebs somewhere and found the average height for an American male was 5'10" and for females was 5'6". Also at that time I believe Americans were the tallest people on Earth. When the Dutch and Danish surpassed them I remember it being newsworthy, and it was attributed to steadily increasing heights among the Dutch and Danish, in addition to the constant stream of millions of Asian and Hispanic immigrants to the USA bringing down the average there.
Of course this all could have been some remarkably vivid dream.
I live in The Netherlands and am 1,90 meter. My girlfriend is 1,80 meter. Compared to people our age we are considered "normal length" (27 and 30 years old). The average in our country is actually a lot lower because of all the peope older than 50. I know lots of people who are at least 10cm taller than their parents. Only when I go abroad (especially Asia) I realize how tall I actually am.
I remember very distinctly in 1995/6 I was with my first girlfriend who was 5'4". She got mad when people would say she was short and she would insist she was average. We looked it up on the interwebs somewhere and found the average height for an American male was 5'10" and for females was 5'6". Also at that time I believe Americans were the tallest people on Earth. When the Dutch and Danish surpassed them I remember it being newsworthy, and it was attributed to steadily increasing heights among the Dutch and Danish, in addition to the constant stream of millions of Asian and Hispanic immigrants to the USA bringing down the average there.
Of course this all could have been some remarkably vivid dream.