Average Height in Illinois is Taller than Missouri, Iowa = Giants

If you're not tall, you understand the height struggle is real. There's a new 2022 ranking for average height per state and it shows that Illinoisans are taller than Missourians and Iowa is full of giants.

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Don't blame me for this one. It's Homesnacks fault. Using data from the CDC, they created a fun map showing which states are tall and which ones aren't. On their handy dandy map, you can see that Illinois is the 14th tallest state (on average) while Missouri is #20. Iowa is...well, they're giants up there.

If you dig deeper into the height numbers shared by Homesnacks, you'll see that the CDC says the average height for a guy is 5' 9" while the ladies are 5' 4". It is interesting to note that the Midwestern states do tend to be taller than the rest of the country.

Why are some areas full of tall people and others aren't?

That's the $64,000 question and the short answer is no one really knows for sure. You could argue that people in the Midwest tend to eat more vegetables, but I don't and I live in the Midwest, so...

For what it's worth, the ranking seems to be based on a CDC survey of over 400,000 people. Not exact science, but that's a pretty decent sample size for why some places have tall people (looking at you way up there in the clouds, Iowa) and other places don't.