Armenian men, women grew by 10.1cm and 8.5cm since 1914: study

PanARMENIAN.Net - People have grown taller over the last century, with Armenian women and men shooting up by 8.5cm and 10.1 cm on average, respectively.

A comprehensive global study by Imperial College London looked at the average height of 18-year old men and women in 200 countries between 1914 and 2014. The study was published in the journal eLife.

Armenian men, in particular, have risen from 104th place to rank the 88th with an average height of 172cm. Women, meanwhile, rose from 142nd place in 1914 to 122nd among others from 200 countries a century later, with an average height of 158.1cm.

Women of neighboring countries – Georgia (49th globally), Turkey (79th), Iran (88th), Azerbaijan (115th) – are taller than those in Armenia, and only Azerbaijani men – 113rd spot worldwide – lag behind those of Armenia.

With an average height of 165.3 cm and 176.5 cm, Russian women and men come in the 23rd and 42nd in the world, respectively.

Though once Scandinavian and U.S. men were the tallest, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Latvia and Denmark now top the rankings, with Dutch men measuring an average height of 182.5 cm.

Latvia currently produces the tallest women, averaging 170 cm, followed by ladies from the Netherlands, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Serbia.

The shortest men in the world are from East Timor, with an average height of 160 cm, and the shortest women are from Guatemala, averaging a height of 149 cm.

While an increase in height has been registered across the century in every country globally, in some of the poorest parts of the world like Sierra Leone, Uganda and Rwanda, the average height has declined by as much as 5cm in the recent 30-40 years.