Help, the rest of the world will be looking down on us . . .

WHEN my kids were young, I measured them to see if I could predict how tall they would be as adults. As a rule of thumb, a boy will, on average, reach half his final height when he is just two years old, while for a girl it is even younger, 18 months. And it proved true for my children.

Part of the reason I was interested is because I was a very late developer — when I left school I was 5ft 6in and looked about 14. I had to take a passport with me if I wanted to be served in pubs. I hated it. Fortunately, I kept growing and eventually hit 5ft 11in. But I now have something of an obsession with height, so I was intrigued to come across recent research by Imperial College London comparing the heights of young people. What is striking is that while we Brits are steadily getting taller, we are rapidly being overtaken by other countries. In the 1980s, the average 19-year-old British boy was 5ft 9in, making him 28th tallest in the world.

By 2019, he’d put on an extra inch, but slipped to number 39. Similarly, 19-yearold British girls, who now average nearly 5ft 5in, are 49th.

The giants are young Dutch people, with both sexes roughly two inches taller than our youngsters. No doubt their excellent healthcare and social welfare play a part, but other countries have these.

Or perhaps it’s just that Dutch women have a thing for tall men. A recent study found that in Holland taller men not only tend to have larger incomes and better health, but more children, too. In the UK and U.S., height doesn’t seem to be quite such a turn-on — except in politics. Recent U.S. presidents have been considerably taller than the average U.S. male (5ft 9in): Joe Biden, at 6ft, is narrowly beaten in the height stakes by 6ft 3in Donald Trump (though rumours are he exaggerates his height).

Boris Johnson, at just 5ft 9in compared with the average UK male’s 5ft 10in, is an anomaly in a line-up of tall British PMs, including Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major.