The world's tallest people are shrinking!

Dutch people are the tallest in the world

It's official - the world's tallest people are shrinking!

People born in the Netherlands are known to be some of the biggest on the planet, but the generation of Dutch people born in 2001 is significantly shorter than those born in 1980.

That's according to a new study carried out by the country's official statistics office.

The study was based on self-measurements of 719,000 Dutch people aged between 19 and 60.

The generation of Dutch people born in 2001 is shorter than those born in 1980

19-year-old Dutch men currently measure an average of 182.9cm (six feet) tall, and women are on average 169.3cm (five feet seven inches) tall.

However, men born in 2001 are on average one centimetre shorter than the men born a generation earlier and the women are 1.4cm smaller compared to their older counterparts.

"In the course of the last century we have become taller and taller, but since 1980 the growth has stopped," the study said.

Factors including immigration and diet are believed to be possible reasons behind the change in height, which reverses a century and a half of rapid growth.

Those moving to the country are often smaller then the average Dutch person, which means they tend to have smaller children.

However, the study showed that growth has also slowed down among Dutch people whose parents and grandparents were both born in the Netherlands.

This is thought to be possibly be down to what's known as the "biological limit" - meaning the limits of how tall humans can grow - but it's also been linked to "unhealthy eating habits and excessive energy intake in the growing up phase" according to scientists.

Despite the decrease in height, the citizens of the Netherlands still hold the record for being the tallest in the world.

Why are Dutch people so tall?

Although Dutch people are known for their height, they weren't always as tall as they're known for being today.

Cycling is a hugely popular form of transport in the Netherlands, with even the Prime Minister Mark Rutte (pictured) often riding his bike to meetings and work

In fact, at the start of the 19th century, they were small by European standards and only started to get taller in the 1840s.

Even just a century ago, it was the United States and Scandinavia - made up of Norway, Sweden and Denmark - which produced the tallest people.

It wasn't until the generation born in the late 1950s that the Dutch took the title.

However, why Dutch people today are so tall is a question to which there's still no clear answer.

There's a popular myth that Dutch people are so tall because they eat lots of diary products!

One popular myth, which suggests that Dutch people's height is down to their love of dairy products like cheeses, has been rejected by scientists.

More wealth, as well as "natural selection in which taller men and women had more children than shorter couples" is thought to be the more likely reason, the statistics bureau said.