Rosemary

What is your height? In a group of Spanish and English are you obviously English because of your size or do you blend in reasonably well?

I am 5ft 3in so am relatively short for an English woman yet I feel like a giant with some of my Spanish friends. My OH is 6ft 2in so he really does stand out like a sore thumb.

One of my neighbours is less than 4ft so it looks really funny when my OH stands talking to her. Her chairs have the legs cut off so that her feet can touch the floor.

What about you?

Rosemary

Dick Dasterdly

An interesting subject especially regarding the Spanish where there seems to me and quite a few others who have mentioned it, to be a huge increase in their height over the period of only two generations.
I have heard many ppl.incl.the Spanish themselves put it down to the improved diets since Francos time, but I think there must be quite a bit more to it than that.
However as you say many of them still appear to be quite a bit short compared to most N.Europeans.

Regarding their chairs I find them quite a problem myself being so low down as well as uncomfortable and lacking enough padding.
I have dodgy knees and also carry a few extra pounds so getting back on my pegs after sitting a while can often be a problem.
Also some bars use the very cheapest of plastic chairs which may be ok for the average Spaniard but are a big no no for me.
I honestly lost count of the number that have collapsed under my weight leaving me flat on my back on the floor, not only myself, but occasionally my pals also.
First thing I do now if possible is to double them up one on top of tother making them higher as well as stronger and safer.

I could go into the subject of Spanish beds as well, as supplied in cheap hotels and hostels.
My own personnel trail of destruction is by now well into double figures.

evamar

I'm quite tall for a Spanish woman: 1.73 m I think that's about 5.8? My mum is maybe 1.62 m My brother and father are only 5-10 cm taller than me, so is my British husband. Fortunately I'm not keen of high heels, so no problem with not wearing them and protect my husband's ego at the same time. This also means that I can walk by myself, I have to cling to anything and anybody when I wear those things in special occasions

It's quite rare that I have to look up to Spanish women, younger or older than me -or British for that case. I'm almost a head taller than most of my Spanish friends and some of my British ones, but I never thought of me as being particularly tall: that would be any woman over 1.80m They asked me to play basketball at school though.

But other than my height... I'm brunette, brown eyed and get an easy tan when I get a bit of sun on me, so definitely Mediterranean looking, but for some reason people think I look French

You can now find 1.90 and 2m long beds; when I was young they were shorter and my feet were hanging over the edge a bit, so they are manufacturing bigger furniture. It used to give me the creeps because I thought something under the bed would go for them...

Dick Dasterdly

Well having my tootsies sticking out of one end was only a minor problem compared to having my more amply proportioned regions disappearing through the centre of the bed in the middle of the night with one hell of a bang waking up half the building and leaving me with my arse end cooling off on a bare tiled floor.

Rosemary

I met a young Spanish man at the hospital who made my OH look short. Unfortunately he is already suffering for his height because he walks hunched over talking to his comrades.

Rosemary

lovingthesun

I'm only 5' tall but look down on my elderly Spanish neighbours who are 78 & 82 years old.

But I'm going to a meeting in the Ayuntamiento on Friday and always dread it, as for 2 hours I have to sit on a hard plastic chair where my feet are dangling in mid-air and I end up with pins & needles in my legs

Fredbargate

I am 6' 1" and had many problems with bed length. I ended up making my own in Gib and transported it in kit form on the roof rack of my car across the frontier.
Customs officer wouldn't let me cross because he said it was wood, I said no a bed, he then sent me to the office.
A woman officer came out and she was taller than me, I explained the problem of bed lengths and she agreed with me and sent me on my way.

cricketman

British people think my OH looks French too

There is definitely a generation of short Spaniards, those that grew up during the early decades of Franco where food wasnt good. Funnily enough my OH's great grandad (raised pre-Franco) was 6ft 1, her Dad only 5ft 3, and her brother now 5ft 8.

Among my generation, around 30, there is no difference in heights between Brits and Spaniards (and Americans). I read this in a scientific paper once, suggesting that short Spaniards are purely down to poor diet in childhood

A different paper also said that there is no difference in skincolour between a Spaniard and a North European when there is no sun (comparing in winter or if a Spaniard lived in the UK)

lovingthesun

There are a lot of elderly ladies (mainly) in our village that are very short and also have very bandy legs, I guess that's also down to bad nutrition - rickets?

On the plus side, I don't feel such a midget here as I did in the UK!

cricketman

Most probably

Nutrition was notoriously bad in Andalucia with many kids being rasied on bread and olive oil. Things were no better pre-Franco either as Andalucia still had a system where the landowners basically owned the peasants as they bought and sold them with the land and then kept them on the border of starvation so they'd come to work each day

There is an excellent film about this, but in Italy called Novecento by Bertolucci. And how Italy changed during the turn of the century. One of my favourite (and longest) films

whitelinen

What utter rubbish. Many people from Africa for example are tall despite lack of food.

Its genetics not food.

Lynn R

I am 5' 10" and blonde, fair skinned (I'm often asked if I am German by Spanish people who don't know me) and my OH is 6' 2" and dark. We often have problems with too short beds when staying away from home.

I have a good Spanish friend who is very petite and when she introduced us to her mother and some other family members, they craned their necks to look up at us and her mother said we were giants!

Just as well she never met my father, he was 6' 6", and both my sister and brother are taller than me.

cricketman

OK, you must remember that I have a degree and masters in biochemistry and genetics

Its not as simple as you think. Genetics play a part, but basically genetically speaking, Western Europeans are incredibly similar. We are mixtures of the same tribes. In Africa you have tribes that seperated tens of thousands of years ago and havent mixed since which is why there is actually more variety among the African peoples.

Some people like to quote that there is a North African influence in Spanish people, but this isnt true either. Higher %s of people in France or the UK have genetic markets indicative of North Africans than Spaniards do.

Oh and if you think Spaniards are short then go and watch their basketball team! They are European Champions and Olympic silver meddalists and the 2nd best team in the world behind the US

lovingthesun

So why are the grand-daughters of the little old ladies I mentioned earlier at least a foot taller than them? That's a big leap in genetics in just 2 generations!

jackytoo

The Queen is only 5'4 and her ancestors were never malnourished

I am 5'7 and spent a lot of time looking up to the Dutch when I was in Holland. one of the tallest race in the world. They are also one of the healthiest but are big smokers.