Posts Tagged ‘average male height’

Why are tall women considered superior to shorter women?

January 24, 2009

Why are tall women considered superior to shorter women?

Because if you’re tall like Uma Thurman, other women think you’re more intelligent, assertive and independent, and if you’re as short as Kylie Minogue, you’re merely considerate and nurturing

By Roger Dobson

Generations of women have complained about high-heeled shoes and the crushed toes and bunions they suffer for the sake of an extra inch or two. Now ground-breaking research has proved their sacrifice is not in vain.

Both men and women judge a tall female on first sight as more intelligent, assertive, independent and ambitious. For good measure, they are also judged richer and more successful, whatever the reality.

Psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Central Lancashire have run the first scientific experiments to prove that “heightism” – which has always been associated with competition between men – colours our view of women’s talents too.

They found that when volunteers were shown digitally lengthened and shortened pictures of women, they made a series of instant judgments about their likely personalities, not all of them flattering. According to Dr Simon Chu, who led the research, it is “the first direct evidence that female height influences perception of their character”.

Tall women do not have things all their own way. The researchers also found that the male volunteers judged small women to be more nurturing and likely to be better mothers.

Shorter women also get support from a separate new analysis from University College London, which shows that women with an hour-glass figure – associated more commonly with small and medium-sized rather than tall females – are seen not only as more attractive, but more intelligent, flirtatious, healthy and fertile. They found that women whose waist was 70 per cent of the size of their hips were thought the most attractive, as well as the most intelligent.

In the Liverpool and Lancashire study, psychologists manipulated pictures of women standing against cars so that the same casually dressed woman appeared in different images to be tall or short. The height of the shorter women was just under 5ft 1in and the taller females 5ft 8in. A hundred men and women, aged 18 to 62, were then asked to rate the women for eight characteristics.

Men believed that shorter women were more considerate, nurturing and homely. However, women on the panel believed that there was no difference between tall and short women for these three traits.

Why men see short females as more caring and more homely is not clear. One theory is that taller women mature sexually later, because more energy is being expended on growing at a time when the reproductive system is developing. Other research has shown that shorter women have more reproductive success – which may be why men see them as more nurturing.

“The accumulating evidence converges on the view that short stature is linked with reproduction, while tall stature is linked with strength,” the report says.

At the same time, expending more energy on growing means that taller women are bigger and stronger, both of which are associated with independence and self-reliance.

Certainly, they are well represented on the public stage. Nicole Kidman, at 5ft 11in, has hardly been held back, although she was unable to wear heels while married to the significantly shorter Tom Cruise. Nor has Uma Thurman, at 6ft. Jodie Kidd, another six-footer, says her height has rarely been a handicap. “I’ve always been very content with the way I look. The only time being so tall has been a problem was when I was showjumping – my feet used to hang down and knock down all the fences.”

The aptly named Liz Large, who runs a clothing company for tall women, said: “I’m 6ft 1in, and it does mean you are noticed automatically. At work I was promoted very young – people just assumed I was grown up and a safe pair of hands.”

Dr David Weeks, a consultant clinical neuropsychologist at the Superyoung clinic in Edinburgh said: “In the past in Britain, being tall has been associated with leadership and social class. If you go back to the early 1940s when they were sorting out who was suitable to be an officer, there three factors – height, dash and moustache. The more, you had the better. Being tall can make a good first impression but it can also be far more enduring and long lasting in people’s perceptions.”

Not that being short is always a handicap. Dr Ros Taylor, a clinical psychologist who has researched image, believes that any advantage a tall person has lasts for a maximum of 30 seconds, after which the positive impression has to be backed up by substance.

“It’s not as if when you are tall that in itself gives you power. It is an initial advantage, and it certainly is an advantage, but if you don’t have it there are other compensations” – an argument that Kylie Minogue, 5ft 1in, and Charlotte Church, 5ft 2in, would support wholeheartedly.

What Happened to America’s Height Advantage?

December 11, 2008

What happened to America’s height advantage?
Posted 7/15/2007 12:31 PM

By Matt Crenson, Associated Press
NEW YORK — America used to be the tallest country in the world.

From the days of the founding fathers right on through the industrial revolution and two world wars, Americans literally towered over other nations. In a land of boundless open spaces and limitless natural abundance, the young nation transformed its increasing wealth into human growth.

But just as it has in so many other arenas, America’s predominance in height has faded. Americans reached a height plateau after World War II, gradually falling behind the rest of the world as it continued growing taller.



Compare that to 1850, when the situation was reversed. Not just the Dutch but all the nations of western Europe stood 2½ inches shorter than their American brethren.


Many economists would argue that it does matter, because height is correlated with numerous measures of a population’s well-being. Tall people are healthier, wealthier and live longer than short people. Some researchers have even suggested that tall people are more intelligent.

It’s not that being tall actually makes you smarter, richer or healthier. It’s that the same things that make you tall — a nutritious diet, good prenatal care and a healthy childhood — also benefit you in those other ways.

That makes height a good indicator for economists who are interested in measuring how well a nation provides for its citizens during their prime growing years. With one simple, easily collected statistic, economists can essentially measure how well a society prepares its children for life.

“This is the part of the society that usually eludes economists, because economists are usually thinking about income. And this is the part of the society that doesn’t earn an income,” said John Komlos, an economic historian at the University of Munich who was born in Hungary, grew up in Chicago, and has spent the last quarter century compiling data on the heights of nations.

Height tells you about a segment of the population that is invisible to traditional economic statistics. Children don’t have jobs or own houses. They don’t buy durable goods, or invest in the stock market. But obviously, investments in their well-being are critical to a nation’s economic future.

For several years now, Komlos and other researchers have been trying to figure out exactly why the United States fell behind. How could the wealthiest country in the world, during the most robust economic expansion in its history, simply stop growing?

“It’s absolutely fascinating,” said Eileen Crimmins, a demographer at the University of Southern California. “Maybe we’ve reached the point where we’re going to go backwards in height.”

Like many human traits, an individual’s height is determined by a mix of genes and environment. Some experts put the contribution of genes at 40%, some at 70%, some even higher. But they all agree that aside from African pygmies and a few similar exceptions, most populations have about the same genetic potential for height.

That leaves environment to determine the differences in height between populations around the world, specifically the environment children experience from the moment of conception through adolescence. Any deficiency along the way, from poor prenatal care to early childhood disease or malnutrition, can prevent a person from reaching his or her full genetic height potential.

“We know environment can affect heights by three, four, five inches,” said Richard H. Steckel, an Ohio State University economist who has also done research on height trends in the United States during the 19th century.

The earliest stages of life are the most important to the human growth machine; at age 2 there is already about a 70% correlation between a child’s height and his or her eventual adult stature.

All of this means a population’s average height is a very sensitive indicator of its most vulnerable members’ welfare.

Not surprisingly, rich countries tend to be taller simply because they have more resources to spend on feeding and caring for their children. But wealth doesn’t necessarily guarantee that a society will give its children what they need to thrive.

In the Czech Republic, per capita income is barely half of what it is in the United States. Even so, Czechs are taller than Americans. So are Belgians, who collect 84% as much income as Americans.

And those height differences translate into real benefits. A number of studies have shown that disease and malnutrition early in life — the same things that limit a person’s height — increase a person’s chances of developing heart disease and other life-shortening conditions later on. Though tall people are more likely to get cancer, they suffer less mortality overall than short people.

International statistics bear it out. Life expectancy in the Netherlands is 79.11 years; in Sweden it’s 80.63. America’s life expectancy of 78.00 years puts it in somewhat shorter company, just above Cyprus and a few notches below Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“Obviously America is not doing badly. It’s not at the level of developing nations,” Komlos said. “But it’s also not doing as well as it could.”

His latest research paper, published in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly, suggests the blame may lie with America’s poor diet and its expensive, inequitable health care system.

“American children might consume more meals prepared outside of the home, more fast food rich in fat, high in energy density and low in essential micronutrients,” wrote Komlos and co-author Benjamin E. Lauderdale of Princeton University. “Furthermore, the European welfare states provide a more comprehensive social safety net including universal health care coverage.”

In the United States, by comparison, an estimated 9 million children have no health insurance.

Komlos’ most recent data indicate a small uptick in the heights of white Americans born between 1975 and 1983, a suggestion that the gap may finally be closing. But there has been no similar increase among blacks, a suggestion that inequality may indeed play a significant role in the height gap.

In another recent paper, Komlos and Lauderdale also found height inequality between American urbanites and residents of suburbs and rural areas. In Kansas, for example, white males are about as tall as their European peers; it’s big cities like New York, where men are about 1.75 inches shorter than that, that drag America’s average down.


But it is unlikely that Komlos will ever find one simple factor to explain why Americans have fallen behind other rich countries in height. In all likelihood it is caused by a combination of things — a little bit health care, some diet, a sprinkling of economic inequality.

“In some ways it gets to the fundamentals of the American society, namely what is the ideology of the American society and what are the shortcomings of that ideology,” Komlos said. “I would argue that to take good care of its children is not part of that ideology.”

Whether that’s true is debatable; the height gap doesn’t measure how much Americans love their children. But at a minimum it does indicate — in raw feet and inches — whether the nation is giving its youngsters what they need to reach their full biological potential, or selling them short.

The Bald Truth About CEO’s

December 10, 2008

By Kai-Uwe Knoth, AP

By Del Jones, USA TODAY





















Baby-face bias








Natural Height? Stretch it out!

December 9, 2008

This video shows you simple exercises that will help you naturally increase your height by standing up straighter! Another safe and effective way to grow taller.

Obama to be 9th tallest U.S. President

November 25, 2008


Barack himself will be the 9th tallest President in U.S history.

