While the rest of the world literally looks up to the Dutch, the tallest members of the loftiest populace on Earth insist it's not easy being big. So an official study by the Dutch national statistics office finding that they appear to be shrinking might be construed as good news.
At a meeting of the Klub Lange Mensen, or Tall People's Club, the lowlanders say there are drawbacks to towering over most of the rest of humanity.
"I've always struggled with my height," says 1.93-meter-tall club chairman Helen Keuken, 57. "When I was 12 I was the tallest in the class, also taller than my teachers. And when I came in contact with the club it was a revelation. I felt like an outsider, and now I belong somewhere."
In a bar in the town of Aalsmeer, the club dance and chat over drinks, glad to have a place to gather where they don't stand out.
Even by Dutch standards they are tall, with male club members needing to measure at least 1.90m and women at least 1.80m.
"We can have a conversation at eye level," says club secretary Rob Leurs-Kout, an imposing 2.11m. "You don't have to bend. You can look straight. That's very nice."
Many members say that being tall in the Netherlands has become "less exceptional" than when they were younger, notwithstanding the study by the national statistics office, CBS.
Dutch men born in 2001 are 1.82m tall on average, one centimeter shorter than the generation born in 1980. Women born in 2001 stand on average 1.69m - 1.4 centimeters less than 1980.
Even so, the Dutch remain the world's tallest. They surpass on average the men of Montenegro, Estonia and Bosnia and the women of Montenegro, Denmark and Iceland.
At the start of the 19th century the Dutch were small by European standards and only started to shoot up in the 1840s, before finally becoming the tallest with the generation born in the 1950s.
The reasons are "very difficult to pinpoint," says two-meter tall Gert Stulp of the University of Groningen's Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
"We know if a country gets wealthier with better health care and better nutrition and fewer diseases, that increases height, as it has done for the Netherlands. Our diet is believed to be one cause. The Dutch drink a lot of milk."
A widely quoted theory that natural selection is responsible - with taller Dutch people having more children than shorter people, - leaves Stulp "not convinced."
The shrinkage? Migration to the Netherlands is one main cause, with people from non-Western backgrounds generally being shorter, both the CBS and Stulp suggest.
But migration doesn't account for everything as growth has also "stagnated" among people with both parents and grandparents born in the Netherlands.
Men without a migratory background have not got any taller since 1980, while there was even a "downward trend" among women in that category.
"It might be a signal of increasing inequality, it might be a signal we ... had less healthy food," says Stulp, with fast food and high-sugar diets particularly to blame.
Humans may also have simply reached a "physiological limit," as a similar leveling off is seen in other European countries, he said.
Back at the Klub Lange Mensen, they are not convinced the Dutch are getting shorter.
"I don't see that, no," says Nico Verhoef, 66, who is over two meters tall. "Most people have remained very tall in my view."
Instead, they are pleased to see how the Netherlands has adapted to its status as world's tallest nation.
Clothing and shoe shops for tall people have sprung up around the country, while the Dutch even changed building codes to raise minimum ceilings of new houses from 180cm to 200cm.
"When I was little there was only one store in the Netherlands where I used to buy my shoes," Verhoef says. "Now you have stores with plus sizes everywhere."
Members insist the world has little reason to be envious.
"I don't see many benefits," Verhoef says. "Only if I am in a crowded area - then my wife can find me easily."
From the Facebook page of Klub Lange Mensen – or Tall People's Club.
