Shorter People Have A 'Chip On Their Shoulder' Which Makes Them Unhealthy?
mcam...@nossaonline.org
their shoulder.
Now a study has found that they might, in fact, have an unhealthy
attitude to life.
Short men and women apparently complain of poorer mental and physical
health than those of an average height.
Researchers examined more than 14,000 responses to the 2003 Health
Survey for England.
The subjects had given details of their height, weight, age, gender,
long-standing illness and social class.
They were then asked to rate their health on a range of indicators
such as mobility, pain and depression.
Those in the shortest height category - men shorter than 5ft 4in and
women shorter than 5ft - reported much poorer health, according to the
report in the journal Clinical Endocrinology.
The survey did not ascertain how healthy they actually were, just how
well they thought they were.
Lead researcher Dr Torsten Christensen said: "Using this large and
nationally representative sample of the UK population, we found
shorter people report that they experience lower physical and mental
well-being than taller people do.
"Our results also indicate that the shorter someone is, the stronger
this relationship becomes."
She added that an increase in height of one inch would have a positive
impact on the healthrelated quality of life of a short person, whereas
the effect of an extra inch would be negligible for a person of normal
height.
Dr Christensen found that short people would have a 6 per cent higher
health rating if they were around three inches taller.
This is the equivalent to the health benefit experienced by an obese
person losing two and a half stones.
Dr Christensen, of Danish healthcare company Novo Nordisk, added: "We
know that people who are short experience more difficulties in areas
of their life such as education, employment and relationships than
people of a normal height.
"Although our study does not show that short height directly causes a
reduction in physical and mental health, it does indicate that short
people are more likely to feel that they experience a lower
healthrelated quality of life."
She added: "Further research is now needed to clarify the precise
relationship between changes in height and health-related quality of
life."
Short height in adult life can either be due to normal development or
can be caused by a number of diseases such as growth hormone
deficiency and Turner syndrome.
Treatment with growth hormone for children with these conditions can
increase their final height by as much as four inches.
The study shows that these height increases could have a huge positive
effect on a person's mental wellbeing once they grow up.
Well, there you have it people. The solution to heightism is to be
taller. So I suppose the solution to racism is to be caucasion;
solution to sexism is to be male; solution to weightism is to be
skinny; solution to extreme tall heightism is to be average height;
solution to gay prejudice is to be straight; solution to religous
discrimination is to worship whatever religion is norm....etc. etc.