The Connection Between Height and Health
Height has historically been regarded as a marker of health and robustness. We seem to implicitly accept that bigger is indeed better, even if we don’t want to admit it. On average, tall people attain more professional success and make more money, the taller presidential candidate almost always wins, and women are more attracted to tall men. On a very visceral level, the taller person is more physically imposing. After all, who would you rather fight – the dude with a long reach raining punches from up high or the shorter guy with stubby arms who has to work his way inside your guard (although Mike Tyson did pretty well for himself with such “limitations”)? And on that note, who would you prefer as a mate – the physically imposing specimen or the shorter, presumably weaker male?
We in the Primal health community are quick to point out that agriculture reduced physical stature. Generally speaking, bone records indicate that Paleolithic (and, to a lesser extent, Mesolithic) humans were taller than humans living immediately after the advent of agriculture. Multiple sources exist, so let’s take a look at a couple of them before moving on:
According to one study on remains of early Europeans, prior to 16,000 BC, European males stood 179 cm tall, or 5’10.5″, and females stood 158 cm, or 5’2″. Between 8,000 to 6,600 BC, average heights had dropped to 166 cm for males. Heights fell even further in Neolithic populations, dropping down to 164 cm for males and 150 cm for females, only reaching and surpassing 170 cm at the end of the 19th century.
Another source found that Paleolithic humans living between 30,000 and 9,000 BC ran almost 5’10″, which is close to the average modern American male’s height. After agriculture was fully adopted, male height dropped to 161 cm, or 5’5.4″. Females went from 166.5 cm to 154.3 cm under the same parameters.
We know these changes to height also reflected worsened health, because with shortness came dental pathologies like caries, plaque, and decay, signs of arrested growth indicating instances of severe malnutrition, and skull abnormalities that stem from iron deficiency. People got shorter, sicker, and less healthy. Height wasn’t a cause of poor health, of course, but it was an indicator.
And that’s where the statistic of height shines – as an indicator. On a large scale, height increases indicate improved nutritional or socioeconomic status, while decreases indicate poor nutrition, famine, war, or economic hardship. Thus, as a population increases in height, it’s safe to assume that its people are either eating better, making more money, or both. If a population shows decreasing height (or stagnation, which the US is showing), we surmise that something is amiss. There exists no better modern day example of height following health than with North and South Korea. Several studies show that South Koreans are taller than their counterparts to the north. Since the two populations are so closely related, genetic differences can’t explain the discrepancy; it’s got to be environment, especially childhood nutrition. North Koreans are famously malnourished, and the height discrepancy between North and South – about three or four inches on average – is similar to the height discrepancy observed between Paleolithic and Neolithic populations.
There are numerous other examples. Up until the late 1800s, Northern Plains Indian tribes were the tallest people in the world, standing over 172 cm (or about 5’8″) and subsisting on a nourishing diet of wild game, fish, berries, and native plants. That height advantage disappeared with reservation life, of course. Fry bread, vegetable oil, sugar, and white flour mixed with extreme stress and economic hardship are poor substitutes for fresh buffalo and open plains. What about Americans, the ones who supplanted the Plains tribes? For most of the past two hundred years, Americans have been the tallest people in the world, until about fifty years ago when height began to stagnate. Today, American males stand around 5’10.5″, but we haven’t grown in decades and other countries have long since passed us. Meanwhile, European and Asian countries have steadily gained on us. The Dutch, whose men stand over 6′ and whose women stand over 5’7″, are now the tallest in the world. American males are ninth tallest and American females are fifteenth, and any regular reader of mine knows that the nutritional situation in America needs a lot of work. It’s no surprise that we’re stagnating while other countries with better nutrition are growing.
And yet for all the concrete links between a population’s height, health, and nutrition (especially childhood nutrition), some researchers have linked “excessive” height to poor health and longevity. Barring the obvious examples of short-lived people with gigantism and other endocrine disorders, there is some evidence that the shorter among us live the longest. Thomas Samaras, a height/health researcher, has authored several papers arguing that bigger is not necessarily better. In one, he reviews human and animal evidence and seems to present a strong argument, but others have argued that Samaras overlooks evidence to the contrary. While Samaras chooses to focus on increased mortality from non smoking-related cancers in the tall, he ignores the bevy of evidence showing that in industrialized nations, taller people enjoy more protection from all-cause mortality, including heart disease, stroke, and respiratory disease.
But what about those centenarians? As Samaras notes, they, along with nonagenarians (between 90 and 99 years old), are on average shorter than the rest of the population. The long-lived Okinawans are famously dimunitive, and it seems like every other Mediterranean centenarian in the news is a spry old lady.
I like one possible explanation for centenarians being shorter and slighter while enjoying better health and longevity: insulin-like growth factor, or IGF-1, a protein produced in the liver and stimulated by growth hormone that induces systemic growth in almost every cell of the body, including muscle, bone, various organs, cartilage, skin, nerves, and lungs. It even affects DNA synthesis and individual cell growth. IGF-1 is perhaps the biggest determinant of height in humans: in infants, IGF-1 correlates strongly with growth, IGF-1 is highest during growth spurts in pre-teens and teens, and higher levels of IGF-1 usually correlate with adult height. Clearly, enough IGF-1 is required for proper musculoskeletal development, but what about too much? Can you have too much IGF-1?
Staffan Lindeberg thinks that excessive serum levels of IGF-1 from diet-induced hyperinsulinemia are causing unhealthy amounts of growth, which manifest as higher rates of cancer and, yes, height, in Western populations. Simply put, Lindeberg agrees that a population’s height is an indicator of health, but only to a point, after which it indicates excessive and potentially problematic levels of IGF-1. There’s probably something to this; female centenarians are more likely to have an IGF-1 receptor mutation that results in elevated serum levels of IGF-1 while reducing IGF-1 receptor activity. In other words, the body was producing more IGF-1 to make up for the lack of receptor activity. This same receptor mutation has been linked to longevity in multiple animal models resulting in higher serum IGF-1 and lower IGF-1 receptor activity – just like in the human centenarians. In male and female offspring of the centenarians, however, only females showed elevated serum levels. Male offspring had similar IGF-1 levels to control males (those with no familial history of longevity). Female offspring were also 2.5 cm shorter than control females; male offspring were of similar height to control males. Perhaps short stature is more beneficial to women?
Maybe so. Gavrilova looked at draft cards filled out by 30 year-old Americans who would eventually grow up to become centenarians and analyzed the differences between the physical stats of those who would eventually grow up to become centenarians and those who didn’t. While obesity (or “stoutness,” as it was called back then) had strong negative links to longevity, height did not. The group of future centenarians was mostly people of medium height. Being soldiers, however, these were exclusively males. According to the IGF-1 receptor mutation study, only in females is the mutation linked to lower heights and greater longevity.
Overall, though? Height is linked to a population’s health and good childhood nutrition. In certain individuals, given certain genetic differences, short stature may indicate the potential for greater longevity, but not on a population-wide scale. Besides – barring pharmaceutical (or cybernetic) interventions, there’s not a whole lot we full-grown adults can do to alter our heights.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Share your thoughts in the comment board.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Interesting article if indeed I ever (decide to) get offspring.
I guess I would’ve been taller as well if not for eating a grain heavy diet during childhood. Now being at 170cm I don’t complain too much although almost everybody here in the Nordics is taller than me. I’m taller than my parents though… I wonder why that happens…
“After all, who would you rather fight …”. Think the dreaded Zdeno Chara, a defenceman of Boston Bruins, at 6 ft 9
I saw an exhibit at the Museum of London 15year ago where they displayed skeletons found in excavations in London dating back over well over 2000 years (London area has been settled for thousands of years) and the striking thing was how much taller the pre-17th Century people were; their teeth were better, teeth and bones showed far less evidence of modern disease. The skeletons from the late 17th Century into the 20th Century showed diseased bones, teeth, & much shorter. The signal change pointed to in the exhibit was the introduction of sugar into the British diet. As I came upon the paleo/primal hypothesis of diet, it took very little convincing after having seen the exhibit.
Never seen so many people patting themselves on the back for something they had nothing to do with; being above average height. Odd.
Agree.
lol true…but entertaining!
I’m 6′ even, which is quite tall for a woman! I come from a tall family on both sides…my dad is 6’3″ and my mom is around 5’7″. I’m the oldest, and my sister, the 2nd oldest–we are both about the same height. My little brother ended up the shortest, actually, at about 5’10.5″. Our family ancestry is mostly German and Irish (lots of Irish, actually, so we must have gotten our height from the German side). I ate an OK diet as a child (at least lots of home-cooked meals and veggies from our garden), but WAY to much sugar and grains and skim milk, so I’m pretty sure most of my height is gene-related. I used to hate being taller than all the guys I knew, but then I found my husband, who is just about 1/2″ taller than me (strangely, his heritage is Korean and Irish?! But I guess the Korean side of his family is quite tall.), so its all good. And now that I know how to sew, I actually have pants that are long enough, YAY! =D
I have a 92 year old grandmother who stands a full 4’10″ (in atheletic shoes). The woman is a force of nature. Of the women in my family I am the tallest, standing 5’2″ barefoot. The men come in only two heights- 5’8″ and 6’2″. Studying only my family I have observed two things. 1- The women live much, much longer despite their bad habits. 2- The shorter you are the more fierce you are. Although the nicest woman in the world, you don’t cross my grandma. She can still throw a 6′+, muscular man to the ground and make him cry like a little girl. Then again that might be why she has lived so long.
When I was in the Sudan almost 30 years ago, I noticed some of the People in the southern part of the country were quite tall and thin. Many of the men were well over 6 feet in height. Life expectancy in that country is short and the climate is unhealthy to say the least.
This fully goes along with the creationist point of view. Interesting.
As a tall dude, I enjoyed the confidence boost I got from reading this, regardless of whether health and height go hand in hand or not.
“… some researchers have linked “excessive” height to poor health and longevity… there is some evidence that the shorter among us live the longest … Perhaps short stature is more beneficial to women?”
I have somewhere heard that a researcher looking into greater female than male longevity tried correlating with other things that varied between females and males – like height and weight, smoking, alcohol, etc. He found that, once you adjusted for those, life expectancy was very similar. In other words, the effect making women live longer is indirect, working by affecting either the processes acting on or those driven by height, weight, etc. Even without endocrine problems there is a material downside from being several inches taller than six feet, and a statistically significant one from being taller than just under six feet (see Gary Deagle’s comment).
Yes, Professor Miller found that taller men did not live as long as women. However, when he compared men and women of the same height, they had the same longevity. I found that among US males and females born around 1980, men lost .5 yr/cm of increased height in life expectancy. This number was found by Miller and Krakauer in Ohio and Swedish studies. In addition, small male dogs live longer than big females dogs. Small male mice also live longer than normal size female siblings.
Height does give you some help in business success, but what many people miss is how much charisma can make you more successful.
Just remember there are races within the white race. The Alpine Race was shorter in statue (legs, arms and neck, rib cage with bigger lunges) and rather stout.
For thousands of years they climbed up and down the mountain range. Their bodies evolved within that territory.
Then you have tribes of people that evolved for thousands of years nomading through the terrain, travelling great distances on foot, growing long legs.
Then you get the mediteranians who didn’t travel much at all and didn’t climb rocky mountains ever…ended up rather short and delicate compared to the rest of europe.
So, if a stout swiss marries a long and tall fin, what comes of it?
Short and white doesn’t always mean you’re malnourished or have otherwise something wrong with you.
White doesn’t always mean white…us europeans don’t consider Italians ‘white’, but for american standards, they are caucasian. There are many races within the ‘white’ race.
If that makes any sense.
Here are some of the races in Europe:
Alpine, Baltic, Dinarid, Mediterranean and Nordic.
Alpine is heavy, broad, short necks, of average height, light skin but not pink.
Baltic is medium short, round face, fair skin with light eyes.
Dinarid is the race of the Balkans. That travelled from the middle east to europe and mixed with the other races. This group makes up about 20% of all europeans, especially the central.
High to medium high tall (depending on with race they mixed with), skin tans easily, slim, slightly aquiline nose.
Mediterranean is short, finer bones and olive to darker olive skin.
Nordic has ‘orange’ hair as a base color of the hair. You can see strands of red hair within the regular hair color. Pink skin that flushes easily, athletic build. Blue or green eyes.
This race is considered the peak of human evolution.
I’m 5’10″ tall, strands of red hair but overall ashy dark blond. Tan easily and only turn pink with the first sun. I have green eyes. I am considered a Dinarid, a mixture of 2 races between the middle east nomads and the nordic.
This is confirmed by my parents ancestry books (which are original and signed by each parent and passed down generations).
My fathers family came from the southern balkan region, close to the middle east and my mother’s is from Finland.
I see a few posts about Ireland here. I’m Irish and a tall lady at 5ft 8 (173cm) but always being told I look taller. One of my colleagues had me down as a 6 fter! I know a lot of tall girls – though I note some comments on how the Irish are generally short. This is certainly true for the men. Good grief – what went wrong there? How did the Dutch get so tall though with other European countries not following suit. It’s a little curious. I have met quite a few Dutch and it’s true they’re all very very tall!!
I should move to Denmark!
I do not think you can attribute much to being Irish or ‘of Viking descent’ etc. etc. because I am of extremely mixed descent – read mongrel who then marrried someone whose family comes from the Balkans – more mongrel. I’m the runt of the family at 5’9″ and there isn’t a male in the family who is under 6′. Our very mongrel children stand 6′ 6″ and 6′ 1″ and one of them is a duaghter. Americans are short?!?! Not in this family, thanks.
Hi,
I’d like to respond to comments by other researchers to my findings on height and longevity mentioned in the above excellent article. They state that I ignore the benefits of industrialization. However, I have reported that during the 20th century, industrialized countries saw a large increase in Western diseases, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and many types of cancers. For example, a 600+ page report by the World Cancer Research Fund (2007) stated that until recently, people following their traditional plant-based diets were free of these diseases until they started eating more like the developed world. The famous researcher, Denis Burkitt, MD, in his book: Western Diseases, found little evidence of diseases common to Western countries in the non developed world. He stated that during the 20th century, the industrialized world has experienced an explosive growth in chronic diseases common to the West.
While non-developed populations have low life expectancy due to high infant mortality, infectious diseases, traumas, and poor medical care, most of the world’s elderly live in non-developed and developed nations. However, when they start developing and adopting increased animal protein and processed foods, they experience sharp increases in Western diseases. For example, a study in rapidly developing India found that young and middle age Indians were experiencing an epidemic of coronary heart disease and diabetes.
The South African researcher, ARP Walker, also reported that rural South African blacks were free of coronary heart disease and cancer back in the 1970s. These blacks consumed much less food than the general white population in South Africa. They were also substantially lighter and shorter than the white population. Walker found that they could expect to live longer once they reached 50 years of age and they had a higher percent of 100 year olds compared to whites.
Lindeberg et al. studied people in Kitava, an island off Papua New Guinea, which is one of the least Westernized populations in the world. After 10 years of study, the researchers found these short and thin people were free of coronary heart disease and stroke. The males were 5’4.
Barry Popkin, Professor of Global Nutrition and Obesity reported recently that the food system developed over the last 150 years by nutritional scientists has had a devastating impact on our health and obesity levels.
The John Hopkins Medical Letter reported recently that about 50% of Americans over 65 years of age take 5 or more medications a day and 25% take 10 to 20 per day. This doesn’t seem to indicate good health to me. The developed world has done a great job at minimizing infant and childhood mortality but a terrible job in helping us avoid chronic diseases and disabilities. Most of the credit for greater longevity in the developed world goes to improved sanitation, hygiene, food preservation, and avoiding or curing infections and communicable diseases. Modern medicine has also played a major role in keeping the elderly alive and functioning.
Returning to the criticism that I ignored contrary data, none of the researchers who reviewed my book: Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling (2007) have said that I presented unbalanced facts. In fact, one reviewer said I was unusually fair in presenting both viewpoints.
My website lists all my publications. You can make up your own minds. http://www.humanbodysize.com
Tom Samaras
Not sure if someone posted this or not, as i only read about half the comments, but what about the effects of living in a world not made for you?
Generally speaking tall people break down earlier, just from anecdotal evidence. Some say thats a sign of genetic weakness or gravity having more of an effect. The last one there i think is absurd personally. Im 6’4″ 208lb. and i have to remind people that tall people are not the norm, and we are living in a world meant for shorties. We are always getting things down from high places, and putting them up there. Cars can be a problem fitting in. Desks in school are often way too small and cause us to have to slouch to be comfortable. All this stuff over the short term is unnoticeable. But over the long term can have a cumulative effect.
In short (pun), the rest of you need to catch up, so us tall folk can catch a break man!
The heart of a taller, heavier person works harded to pump blood through the body and to greater height. With the exception of the heart and lungs, smaller people have bigger organs in proportion to their weight when compared to comparable taller people of similar builds. Larger organs have a greater functional capacity.
Another problem with bigger bodies is that they require more cell doublings to produce their bigger bodies as they grow from infancy to adulthood. Thus, taller, bigger people have more cells and have to replace more cells over a lifetime due to damage done by free radicals. The problem is that human somatic cells can only replicate 50 to 70 times in a lifetime. Compared to tall people, a recent study showed that among 90 year olds, the shorter people had more potential cell doublings left to replace defective or dead cells. The shorter 90 year olds also had better survival after that age.
Tall people should not get upset about this situation. However, they need to take better care of themselves. Avoiding smoking and excessive drinking, consume a healthful low-animal product diet, exercise regularly, regular get health checkups, manage stress, get enough sleep, etc. A healthful lifestyle and some luck with good genes can offset the negative effects of fewer potential cell replications. Many tall people can live a long time.
I got stuck in the middle: Dad is 6’8” Mom is 5’4”. Damn!
Coming from a short family of men I can honestly say they are tougher than most men. bth grandfathers were highly succesful military vets.One of them a pilot and amatuer boxer. My uncle is a race car driver.The toughest guy I knew in school was my hieght,5’7,and state champ wrestler,he was a bulldog.I know women generally dont care for shorter men,thats fine and makes some sense but dont think they cant protect you,its usually the opposite.
Very interesting article. As a 6’2 woman, I’m always interested to read what height shakes out to, aside from constantly getting asked if I play basketball.
One obvious reason for the stagnation of height increases in the US is the not politically correct observation of massive immigration of short populations since the mid 1970′s.
It certainly hasn’t been for the lack of calories, a long serving attribution for height tendencies.
The Dutch, on the other end of the scale, haven’t had the “short peoples immigration” we have had, and their easily accessed universal health care helps insure healthy babies and healthy adults by almost any measure.
In fact, the US is somewhere around #20 in infant mortality.
That’s wrong on two counts:-
- In the 1950s the Dutch took in a great many people from the former Dutch East Indies who were no longer safe because they had supported the Dutch.
- The Dutch have not always had that access to good health care and nutrition. In particular, in the winter of 1944-5 war brought famine to the unliberated parts (so creating a natural experiment, as there was a control population). This did not merely affect those young then or born soon after, since maternal size affects foetal nutrition; the children of those children experienced consequential effects.
All the 5’8″-ish women that call themselves ‘tall’….puh…uh…leeeeease.
You’re not tall ’til you hit at least 5’10″…and even that I’d consider rather normal.
5’10″ for females is not normal/average by any statistic data
For men maybe (I think the overall averaga is an inch lower) but for women ? No way.
5’10″ for females is not normal/average by any statistic data
For men maybe (I think the overall average is an inch lower) but for women ? No way.
I didn’t say 5’10 was average or normal.
I said 5’10″ is the beginning of tall. All those women that are 5’8 and under are not tall, they’re average/normal.
If you’re female and 5’7 you’re not tall.
As a male I have NO desire to possibly live longer by being shorter. I count my 6’3″ height as a real blessing in life, especially, ahem, mate selection. And even though my genetics (and paleo diet!) indicate I will live into my 90′s or longer, I have no desire to necessarily fulfill that destiny. Long life is highly overrated.
And folks, stop it with the personal anecdotes of some relative or distant population. Absolutely of no scientific value. Too many variables, n-1 is not statistically valid.
Being over six feet does not make it easier to find a mate, personality and physical attractiveness do. I will admit though that you may have more choices being at least taller than 5’10″. My brother is 5’9″, is very good looking, and has a great personality, his girlfriend is HOT and stands at 6 feet. She’s also one of the coolest girls I’ve met. Maybe that’s part of it, all those convential insecure women out there. These types of women make it hard for any man that want a woman with a personality that isn’t caddy and superficial to find a mate. There are waaay too many of them out there. I’ll admit, there’s a lot of boring closed minded deuchebag men out there too, so maybe the population matches up just fine.
Long life is overrated if you are aging and deteriorating at a rapid rate. I, like Mark and many others, hope to keep feeling good and functioning at a high enough level to enjoy life for a long time. We may see some therapies develop that allow us to do this in our lifetime. In the meantime, we simply take great care of ourselves, choose our supplements wisely, and have as much fun as possible.
I wonder why according to the evolutionary way of looking at mating or attraction, women are suppose to like taller men and men are worried about other traits in women.
My husband likes tall women, lucky for me, and I like stocky, muscular guys (even when they are only five feet seven inches tall. (Lucky for him.)
I know -it’s anecdotal so it doesn’t count. But on the health related stuff a lot of times people say use your own experience to tell you what’s true about your body.
I like paleo/ primal explanations for food, but I’m skeptical of the claims about attraction. I suppose I think culture disrupts these things to a certain extent – and not always in a negative way. For example, my girlfriends and I think that humor is a really important characteristic in choosing a partner.
Also – how does the evolutionary way of thinking about mates and attraction account for homosexuality?
Just wondering.
On that last point, there are a few theories and only some evidence. On the evidence, twin and sibling studies show that there is a hereditary component to homosexuality, but that it is not completely determining (e.g., identical twins share the same orientation more often than randomly, but they don’t always share it). So the theories have to account for that and also explain why it doesn’t breed out over time anyway. But there are still different possible reasons, and the evidence isn’t enough to show which (or which combination) is right, if any. Here are some, with the first one being the currently most popular:-
- There is something hereditary that makes women more attractive and also more likely to breed, that can show up in men as homosexuality. The breeding out effect of the latter would be overwhelmed by the advantage of the former, so maintaining the trait(s). Con: this doesn’t explain lesbians (so it can’t be the whole story). Pro: there are more male than female homosexuals (so it could still be part of the story).
- Evolution simply hasn’t caught up with modern lifestyles yet. Traits that now produce non-breeding homosexuality might not have been non-breeding traits under other circumstances. E.g., many tribes have age segregation, with women and breeding reserved for the elders and young men indulging in other ways (if at all). It is quite plausible that homosexuals would breed better than heterosexuals under those circumstances, since they wouldn’t get killed fighting for/stressing out over women while they waited, and as elders with lower sex drive but under cultural pressure (including an incentive to have descendants to support them in old age) they might be able to mate with women because of being less distracted by then. Of course, there is no ethical way to study this.
- Having non-breeding but supportive uncles might have helped children make it through a high mortality childhood, so encouraging traits that provided such uncles.
That’s not an exhaustive list, of course.
A 6’5″ man will usually have a much larger penis than a 5’8″ manlet.
Women like large penises.
A 6’5″ man will usually be happier than a 5’8″ manlet.
I’m a Dinarid and proud of it.
Tall and slender.
Longer legs than upper body ratio. Oval face with narrower mandible, pronounced cheekbones and a long neck. Tan easily to a golden brown, ashy dark hair that bleaches easily in the sun, green eyes with brown spots, no freckles.
Like someone posted above there are 5 distinct races from within europe.
Alpine, Baltic, Mediterranean, Nordic and Dinarid. The dinarids are the only ones with longer legs than upper body length. If you have the same length legs as upper body (or shorter legs than upper body) then you are not a dinarid and probably one of the other races or a mixture of them.
All this has been proven by anthropologists and bones that have been recovered from certain areas.
Nutrition might play a role in bone development (especially the facial bones and maxilla) but I don’t think someone could decline by 4 inches of leg length, or more, in 1 generation.
Milk does promote growth but Colin Campbell, a nutritional biochemist, avoids this food because it contains animal protein and insulin-like growth factor-1. Both promote chronic disease as well as increased height and body size.
Professor Walter Willett, Chairman of the Nutrition Department at Harvard, recently reported that red meat and processed meats promote cancer, heart disease, diabetes and all-cause mortality. He recommends a plant-based diet with little sugar, salt, and simple carbohydrates.
Dr. Campbell was raised on a milk farm and drank quite a bit during his youth. I drank 2 quarts a day while growing up and wound up about 6 inches taller than my father and mother.
Researcher Silventoinen reported that the Western diet promotes both greater height and coronary heart disease.
People who follow plant-based diets in non-developed populations usually don’t drink cow’s milk and rarely get the chronic diseases common in the West until they become Westernized.
For more information on height and growth see my
blog and website:
http://samarasbodyheightweight.blogspot.com/
http://www.humanbodysize.com
Tom Samaras
Big and tall, meat-eating American soldiers lost to small and short, rice-eating Vietnamese guerrillas from 1955-1975.
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
I’m Dutch and at 1.78m I recall always being among the 3 shortest guys (they were of equal length) in high school..
My girlfriend is 1.77m
I’ve got friends and colleagues whose *shoulders* are level with the top of my head. =( :S
Hi Mark. Enjoyed your article and agree that we can’t change our heights. However, we can change the heights of future generations. In addition, I have a few points to make. The scientists that say I have ignored conflicting evidence should read my books and papers. Actually it’s the critics who have ignored the evidence. For example, have they reported the following data that conflicts with their belief that taller is healthier in their papers?
1. National US data show that shorter Asians have a much lower mortality rate compared to taller White and Black males. In addition, Latinos and Native Americans are in between Asians and White/Blacks in both height and mortality rates. That is, mortality rises with increasing height for the five ethnic groups reported. This Government study is based on about 18 million deaths between 1985 and 1999. These findings are hard to ignore but they have been out there for years.
2. Why do critics ignore the 1991 Holzenberger study. This study tracked about 1 million men from their youth to their deaths and found that they lost 0.8 yr/cm of increased height. I haven’t come across references to his work. If they are out there, they appear to be rare. If Holzenberger had found that tall men live longer, I’m sure it would have gotten wide circulation.
3. If we look at life expectancy data (CIA World Factbook, 2001), the top six populations in terms of life expectancy are substantially shorter than the six tallest populations in Western europe. Yet, populations like Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore ranked about 3.5 from the top compared to a ranking of 28 for taller Scandinavians, Germans and the Dutch.
4. The latest study on height was published a few months ago and is entitled: Height and Survival at Older Ages Among Men Born in an Inland Village in Sardinia (Italy), 1866-2006. It was published in Biodemography and Social Biology. This study found that within an isolated, homogeneous population, shorter men lived 2 years longer than taller ones. Their average height was 5’3″; they are the shortest people in Sardinia and also the longest living. This study is consistent with earlier findings in Sardinia which found that shorter men live longer. To my knowledge, pro tall height epidemiologists also conveniently ignored these findings.
5. Women are smaller than males and live longer. Professor Miller found that when he compared men and women of the same height, they lived the same number of years. This finding is consistent with the fact that small male dogs live longer than larger breed females. Miller’s study, which also found shorter people live longer, was also given short shrift.
6. Professor Alex Comfort and many other scientists have pointed out that smaller individuals within a species generally live longer than larger individuals. This includes dogs, mice, rats, cows, ponies vs horses and Asian elephants vs African elephants.
7. About 2000 caloric restriction studies have shown that early caloric restriction leads to smaller bodies and much greater longevity. However, caloric restriction must be associated with a nutritious diet and good environment.
Professor Bartke recently published a review in Gerontology which concluded that smaller is better for our health and longevity: DOI:10.1159/000335166
The preceding is only a small fraction of the evidence: see my website for a list of about 40 papers are available. It lists the articles and books that I have authored or co-authored.
I agree that nutrition, medical care, standard of living, lifestyle, income, etc can neutralize the benefits of smaller body size because height represents only 10% of the longevity picture. Thus, upper class people tend to be taller and the various advantages of a better lifestyle and medical care can promote lower mortality, especially in middle age years. (I know of no studies of centenarians that found they were on average tall.) However, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and American researchers have reported that being short and light was common among centenarians.
I sympathize with researchers who have believed taller height is healthier most of their lives. It is hard for them to open their minds to the possibility that the opposite may be true. I hope they will rethink their old beliefs based on a false connection between nutrition and height because our life expectancy has increased. I doubt that they would believe that being fat is desirable because our life expectancy has risen sharply in parallel with increasing human obesity. I suggest that they consider Professor Rollo’s observation that the high meat and calorie diets of industrialized populations accelerates aging. If it didn’t, why does 50% of 65 year old Americans take 5 medications a day and 25% take 10 to 20 medications per day?
We can’t change our heights, but we can lower our body weight while on a wholesome diet that minimizes the promotion of chronic diseases that have been promoted by our industrial diets, which are too high in animal protein, processed foods, and calories.