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Comment by throwaway33381 | Hacker News Reader

True. But the average Korean was also around and often under 4 feet tall up until the 1950s. So yeah. Now depending where you are they average 6 feet. And well, they haven't been ethnically replaced. So unless the Koreans have a magic gene that has made them gain 2 feet in height. No, it's definitely their diet.

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You have to provide a credible reference for a ridiculous claim like this. Cursory search says Korean’s average height has grown about 6 inches in a century. Two feet or 50% taller might as be a new subspecies.

Here's an article from a credible source on Korean height. https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/2/23/23611947/world-south-ko...

From that article:

> For example, the average South Korean woman was about 4-foot-7 ...

That's closer to 5 feet than 4 feet. And 4 foot 7 is kind of hard pressed to be "around 4 feet", which most people would read as "around 4 foot 0".

Maybe Korea's issue (as well as other East Asian countries) issue with a rice-based diet (especially white rice) in the absence of modern levels of consumption of meat or other animal-derived food. While bread (especially whole bread) has some level of protein in and of itself, and Italians have also had cheese and milk available at least some of the time, trying to survive off of a diet of rice and vegetables must be particularly unsuited to growing to your genetic potential. My impression of Korean food is that it would be quite unsatisfying from a nutritional standpoint without the meat, whereas Indian and even Chinese food seem to be a little more nutritious.

> without the meat, whereas Indian and even Chinese food seem to be a little more nutritious.

> even

Interesting word to describe the cuisine with arguably the richest history of vegetarian dishes/diet.

Hmm, I would consider Indian to have the richer history of vegetarian dishes, hence why I used "even Chinese". Moreover, Indian cuisine uses cheese and butter, unlike Chinese cuisine

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