Dutch men and Latvian women are the planet's tallest people but Iranian men and South Korean women have grown the fastest in the last century, according to the largest-ever study of height around the world.

Americans, once among the world's tallest people, have dropped from having men and women at 3rd and 4th in the global height rankings a 100 years earlier, to placing 37th and 42nd, respectively, in 2014.

The research, led by scientists at Imperial College London and published in the journal eLife, also found some nations have stopped growing over the past 30 to 40 years, despite having spurts at the start of the century studied.