Dutch went from shortest to tallest in Europe through sexual selection

But why were they aggressively selecting for tall stature? Perhaps because they were on average shorter than rest of Europeans, so they felt there is something wrong with them? Which isn't unbelievable, I've seen shortest girls demand the tallest men.

So when nutrition improved those already tall genes which were there, got time to express themselves to the fullest.

Here is some acecdote:

In my village, people mostly select average height partner. And tall people aren't considered more desirable. No one compared height or thought of it as some advantage but when men from other tribes started appearing near the village, suddenly they started thinking of how to increase their height, some are now drinking gallons of milk in effort to improve their height because they are lagging, while women want the tall men now. My grandma tells me, they never thought about "height" as a trait they select in their partner, they never thought about it. To her, any man who was average and could work on farm (not crippled), was not very ugly was a good partner.

If the height differences were adjusted for income etc, it would be convincing. I didn't read the OP. Did they do that?

They did compare them to other populations at the time. Unless the Dutch were especially under-nourished, then the effect seems reasonably well-founded.

Basically, when you are the tallest people in the world, any immigration will tend to shorten the average length.

Dutch were really short because of malnutrition.

Perhaps people were trying to make sure their children become taller despite being so short. So they tend to marry the tallest people. This works because of improving nutrition.

Perhaps this preference for height became ingrained culturally in the society. This cultural preference becomes ingrained since it can be reproduced by relative isolation (cultural and/or physical).

According to the article, tall men were favored whereas average sized women were favored. I wonder why tall women weren't favored versus average sized women? I think these preferences are in general populations but were exaggerated here?

The dataset focuses on the north-east of the Netherlands (specifically the three provinces of Drenthe, Fryslân, and Groningen). So no, not Holland.

The Netherlands. "Holland" is the name of one Province in the Netherlands.

Edit: I stand corrected. Actually two provinces.

They were already tall no? Were they ever shortest in Europe?

I'm not so sure this isn't broadly accepted. As far as I understand it everyone knows why the peacock has ridiculous (or beautiful, depending on your sensibilities) feathers, or why male birds are beautiful, while female birds are plain.

I wonder how can tall gene flow in a way that they are only expressed in a specific gender but not other?

So basically, it will look like as it looks anywhere else. Pretty sure there are 6'3 Dutchmen who feel short in Netherlands.

OTOH... sexual selection isn't all about combat; it's really quite comforting to be the smol spoon.

I wouldn't want to be taller than my current 200cm though.