r/ABCDesis • u/lasagna_lee • 1d ago
FAMILY / PARENTS Why are our desi cousins shorter than us?
This really fucks me up but I think most desis that are born and raised abroad grow taller than their counterparts back home. I'm actually curious, how many of you get comments from ppl about your height when you visit South Asia? I certainly always do in Pakistan. I'm just about 6'0 which is getting rare there. That country is getting shorter every year.
Is the air pollution seriously infecting their DNA and preventing them from reaching their full physical and brain potential? I hate this so much. I lived there until I was 7 yo so my DNA could've rotted a bit too while I was there.
UPDATE - i did some basic data analysis based on the data provided by the NCD-RisC. This is how the avg 19 year old's height changed over the years. you can see pakistan has regressed, especially pakistani girls, and then with india, it's hard to generalize. india is too big and you'd have to do a regional breakdown. but in any case, pakistan is fucked. i'm thinking the main cause is air pollution. you can see china's height steadily improving and they've also steadily improved their air quality but i guess correlation is not causation.
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u/TheBetterPerson11 1d ago
Better food intake, environment and more physical activity
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u/phoenix_shm 1d ago
More physical activity?? This one is hard to isolate, I think. Whenever I've been in India, I sure got my steps in!
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u/KindestBlackTemplar 1d ago
Am I the only ABD shorter than his mainland male cousins lol.
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u/Chai-Tea-Rex-2525 1d ago
No. I am too. Most of my family is 5-8 to 6-0. I’m 5-6. Even my brother is 5-9.
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u/AdGroundbreaking6643 1d ago
No. My moms side of the family in India is all absurdly tall for whatever reason. Like 6’4ish. I’m on the shorter side at 6’0. And my dad’s side of the family mostly all are abroad and not nearly as tall.
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u/KindestBlackTemplar 1d ago
Hey, hey, don’t call yourself short or shorter at 6’ my friend, I’m 5’7 only ppl my height or below own the short title 😤
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u/Spare_Night_2695 British Bangladeshi 1d ago
5’1 here
I don’t think the short title belongs to 5’7 people lol
Only 5’6 and below
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u/lasagna_lee 23h ago
I'm curious, is your mom's side of the family from a rural area with cleaner air or are they from some dense urban area
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u/AdGroundbreaking6643 11h ago
My family all are from Varanasi, Patna, and Ranchi. All dense urban areas from the poorest parts of our country with awful air quality lol. Idk why my moms side is so absurdly tall. I guess one thing is that we are not at all vegetarians, and i think that may have helped a bit with nutrition and getting a bit of protein in. My nani had mutton at her wedding and mutton curry during holi was a tradition for us. so we were never really vegetarians even though they are fairly religious.
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u/AdGroundbreaking6643 11h ago
But it probably is mostly genetics tbh, diet only had a small factor on whether you reach your max possible height.
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u/Tipoe 1d ago
Malnourishment
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u/xXTERMIN8RXXx 1d ago
This. In North America, our food is much more fortified with vitamins, minerals, antibiotics, steroids... we got boosted lol
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u/FreeGlass2286 1d ago
It kind of sucks because you could have grown up malnourished because of poor parenting and eventually overcame that by working hard academically to become something. But at the end of the day and for the rest of your life, you’ll still be extremely short 😭
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u/Melo2cold 1d ago
I noticed the upper class and middle class youth in India aren’t short it’s common to see friend groups with heights ranging from 5’11-6’2”. The average height is significantly affected by malnourished populations who are barely over 5 feet.
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u/ibarmy 1d ago
Low protein indian diet is the culprit especially in formative childhood years.
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u/Looking4OpposingView Maharashtrian 1d ago
Desi logic : Dal = Protein
No further discussion needed 🤦♂️
I was 20+ when told by a physician that dal protein is barely a fraction of daily requirement.
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u/ibarmy 1d ago
That or paneer. Just insane. Idk the research but the health indicators in kids have actually worsened in the last 6-8 years due to removal of eggs from the school lunches.
There is some whack level subjugation of ‘pure veg’ dietary requirements across the subcontinent.
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u/IcyAnything6306 1d ago
I don’t think this is the answer, my family in the US is all vegan and vegetarian as well and we tower over our family raised in the mainland.
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u/keralaindia sf,california 1d ago
I don't personally see much difference in the 2 groups. If anything the reverse at least in my family and I have 30+ cousins
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u/SmokiesHikers 1d ago
Everyone in my family is on the taller side. I’m 6ft and I only have one male cousin shorter than me. I think it’s just genetics because my grandfather was 6ft 5in back in the days when food was scarce and people weren’t as tall.
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u/tres-vip 1d ago
I was born and raised in the US, and came out short AF, even shorter than my mainland-raised mom (though not my a lot). I remember when we visited India, my aunt there suggested I hang off monkey bars to add to my height, lol. My mom's side in India is all petite, while my dad's side is tall. And I came out the smallest of the bunch, lol
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u/champnony 1d ago
GMO, and preservatives in the American food. Nowadays even the folks back home are getting a taste of it (via major chains) and you can actually see them be bulkier than they used to be before.
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u/squidgytree British Indian 1d ago
Poor nutrition is the core of the problem. Even the well off Indians suffer from a lack of protein and fibre because of desi cooking being so processed and cooked to death with high heat
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u/SamosaAndMimosa Indian American 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's 100% a fundamental lack of nutritional knowledge. My dad fear mongered us into thinking protein bars and protein powder are dangerous because they have "bad chemicals" while making us overdose on daal because it's a "protein bomb"
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u/audsrulz80 Indian American 1d ago
Hmm my Gujarati/Kutchi family tends to be tall, my dad is 6’1”, my great-grandfather was 6’2”, and I have a cousin who lives in India who’s 6’7”. My son’s dad is also 6’1” and his paternal grandmother is 5’8”, and my son’s projected height is around 6’2”.
Nutrition and childhood environment can affect height, but I don’t think you can conclude from people commenting on your height that Pakistan is “getting shorter every year” or that people’s DNA is being damaged by air pollution.
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u/SharpAardvark8699 1d ago
That region is blessed with good sun and nutrition. If you go to near Rajasthan it is ace there too
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u/FreeGlass2286 1d ago
I’m M 5’2 grew up in the U.S. and all of my family back in India is 5’10-6’. Idk what ur talking about 😭. Like women who grew up in India who now go to college or work in the U.S. won’t date me because I’m way shorter than all their male peers back at home.
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u/keralaindia sf,california 1d ago
Mostly confirmation bias, I don't think Indians in India are any shorter than those in the US.
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u/lasagna_lee 23h ago
ur family from both sides is that tall? might be an anomaly case
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u/FreeGlass2286 23h ago
Yeah, idk what happened. But it’s not good. I’m going to get juiced for alimony. I can feel it coming.
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u/Connect-Farm1631 1d ago
This is probably just anecdotal. Lots of my cousins who grew up in India are much taller than me.
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u/morpmeepmorp 1d ago edited 1d ago
Maybe the lack of protein in the vegetarian diet. Routine vegetarian Indian diet is carb heavy. Along with that sedentary habits since childhood. Lack of sports and activities in schools that are mainly academics oriented rather than overall development of a child. Children are not encouraged to participate in Extracurriculars here all that much because it "affects their studies".
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u/rockybond Indian American 1d ago
i'm 6'3" and ascribe this mostly to increased meat intake as a kid. everyone else in my family is vegetarian and they're pretty average height (<6')
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u/stuputtu 1d ago
lol all my family side cousins in india are as tall as our kids who are brought up here
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u/sustainstack 1d ago
I am 6’4”. No one back home is taller than 5’9”. They are also hardcore vegetarians, and I got suckered into our fine American dietary traditions
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u/HickAzn Bangladeshi American 22h ago
Cousins may not be shorter, but the average ABCD is taller than the average Deshi back home because of
Genetics: our parents were on average from more affluent families and had better diets
Protein intake in our Western diets
And remember: I am talking about averages. Not individual families.
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u/lostnation1 1d ago
Probably your ancestors invested more masala in your genes coz they knew you'd have motion
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u/samhouston84 1d ago
There is a full documentary about this. When the british colonies gained independence, this same phenomena happened with the brits.
"Meat consumption" is the answer. We as americans consume more meat than our folks in the mainland. You should look it up, it's fascinating. Also, yay, science!
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u/Charming-Host4406 1d ago
I am your desi cousin y'all. I am bombarded with the views that mediocre vegetarian diet is healthy.
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u/zara_stone 1d ago
Not true for me at all, infact the opposite!
Also because my mom was a lazy cook and i do believe diet contributes to it, and cousins back in india ate really well because of the house help/cooks available to them.
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u/Significant-Tale3522 1d ago
kids are more active here than in India. Fitness is never a priority like it is here.
And pressure on the joints is the main reason bones grow.
Growth hormones in the milk here?
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u/Puzzled-Branch-641 1d ago
You have some sort of fucked up complex. Now that you have taken this route then may be it depends on whether your parents migrated here as blue collar workers or otherwise. Cos folks back home in my community are pretty tall.
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u/FluffyShakes 1d ago
i am physically stronger than all of the males on both sides of my family, most likely diet
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u/chicbeauty 1d ago
Really? We’re all pretty similar in height although I guess genetics and income plays a role
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u/melonkoli 1d ago
My cousins are all taller than me :(. But I think it’s just me because my brother is 6’ and he’s the tallest amongst our cousins.
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u/idk-rogue 16h ago
I grew up in India and my parents thought rice makes you grow and some priest told them to not feed me less chicken and eggs
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u/Square-Candy-7393 15h ago
Nah probably a bullshit statistic. While there is evidence that Indian kids and kids from overseas have different constitution, Indian guys are a lot more formidable but overseas living girls tend to be stronger than the mainland counterparts
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u/DustApprehensive4688 1d ago
There’s also more chemicals and preservatives in the food in North America, which I believe contributes to growth rates. North Americans I think also tend to eat more animal protein.
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u/Honest-Mess-812 1d ago
This there within the country as well. I recently came across some study that's says average height is increasing in places like kerala than Northern Indian states due to nutrition
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u/Maximus1000 1d ago
I grew up in the US in the 80s, and my brothers and I all grew to over 6 feet tall. Meanwhile, all our cousins who grew up in India in the 70s and 80s ended up around 5’7” to 5’9”. When we talked to them about it, they said they barely had any protein in their diets growing up. We, on the other hand, ate a lot of meat here in the US. It’s not like they didn’t have enough food in India, but food definitely wasn’t as abundant as it was for us growing up in America. What’s interesting is that a lot of those same cousins eventually moved here, had kids, and now their kids are all pretty tall too. So I think it’s a combination of genetics, nutrition, environment, and overall access to better food growing up.
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u/Nirgranth24 Indian American 1d ago
Yes, it is a combination of environmental factors including air pollution, water hygiene, food hygiene, lack of vitamin fortification in foods, and poor nutrition.
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u/SharpAardvark8699 1d ago
It's not getting shorter there.
I think you are highly superior and need to demonstrate it to the world
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u/lasagna_lee 23h ago
It's not getting shorter in Pakistan? There are sources that show pakis stunting in growth and indians growing taller (not necessarily taller than pakis tho). Anecdotally is better though since our lovely dictatorship likely wouldnt allow data collection to conceal how much they've destroyed the people but y ou can see it when u visit karachi and compare them against the ABCDs abroad. I'm not Norwegian. I'm an avg karachi person and there's no reason my counterparts should be averaging 5'7 while I'm 6'0. Maybe u misunderstood me but this actually makes me depressed. There is a biological regression of our ppl happening right in front of our eyes and no one seems to give a shit.
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u/ConnectGazelle4947 1d ago
In a recent study kids who grew up in delhi had lungs 2/3 the size of kids who grew up in southern india (cant recall which city was used for comparison)
This is the live impact we see between the most polluted major city and a lesser polluted city in india itself.
Add to this the poor sanitation, adulteration, noise pollution, lack of sporting venues and open spaces (3rd space), no surprise there is a difference in height.
Here in Australia as well I've seen many examples (a nepali family in neighbourhood comes to mind) of kids of parents both 5 feet nothing growing up to be 6 ft+ in height