Tall story: Why northern Europeans tower over their southern counterparts

Genetic differences, painstakingly crafted by thousands of years of natural selection, explain why Europeans from the north tower over their southern cousins, researchers said.

In a study that touched on the age-old “nature vs nurture” debate, an international team of scientists set out to determine once and for all why, for example, the average Dutchman’s frame differs so much from that of, say, a Portuguese person.

“We found that genetic differences between countries provides an explanation for national differences in height,” lead author Matthew Robinson, from the University of Queensland in Australia, said Monday.

Many physical traits, including height and body mass index (BMI: a ratio of height to weight), vary between people from different regions of the world, even different parts of the same continent.

In Europe, for example, the Dutch are seven centimetres taller on average than Italians, and rise eight centimetres above Spaniards.

But the relative contribution of genes and environmental factors has never been clear.