Height is a largely genetic thing, even if nutrition also matters everything else equal. Serbo-Croats are among the highest people in Europe and were documented as such since Byzantine times, when chroniclers often mentioned that "Slavs" were very tall. This does not apply to Bulgarians, who are among the shortest of Europe.
Other populations like Dutch (now the tallest of Europe but in the late Middle Ages rather in the short end) or Galicians (now with younger generations among the tallest of Iberia but decades ago, in the 70s, the shortest ones instead). This has been attributed in both cases to improved nutrition... but, as I said above, it also largely depends on genetics: Japanese tried to improve their average height via nutrition and it didn't really work, Scandinavians and Horners are both among the tallest populations on Earth, yet they have very different economic and nutritional histories. Brits are quite privileged, yet they tend to shortish sizes, especially women, the same happens with French, Swiss and Finns (both genders).
Your comment on nutrition is spot on. In fact, I think it also applies to the Japanese (someone in your 2012 post also mentioned this) and to the Chinese if you look at recent height data.
Height is a largely genetic thing, even if nutrition also matters everything else equal. Serbo-Croats are among the highest people in Europe and were documented as such since Byzantine times, when chroniclers often mentioned that "Slavs" were very tall. This does not apply to Bulgarians, who are among the shortest of Europe.
Other populations like Dutch (now the tallest of Europe but in the late Middle Ages rather in the short end) or Galicians (now with younger generations among the tallest of Iberia but decades ago, in the 70s, the shortest ones instead). This has been attributed in both cases to improved nutrition... but, as I said above, it also largely depends on genetics: Japanese tried to improve their average height via nutrition and it didn't really work, Scandinavians and Horners are both among the tallest populations on Earth, yet they have very different economic and nutritional histories. Brits are quite privileged, yet they tend to shortish sizes, especially women, the same happens with French, Swiss and Finns (both genders).
Ref. old self-research on mine based on publicly available data (Europe only): https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-height-of-europeans-and-myth-of.html
Your comment on nutrition is spot on. In fact, I think it also applies to the Japanese (someone in your 2012 post also mentioned this) and to the Chinese if you look at recent height data.
The Dutch are also interesting in that, at least partially, their increase in height appears to be the result of recent selection: https://www.science.org/content/article/did-natural-selection-make-dutch-tallest-people-planet