5 ms·

I also find the "taller is better" a bit unscientific. So, 10, 20 ft tall is better?

by muyuu 12y ago

Dewie 12y ago
There certainly seems to a popular opinion/belief that tallness is inherently good; describing a person as tall seems to often be a compliment (at least for men). But I'm not sure that is the case for this article. It seems to be saying that overall tallness in a general population might indicate that the people of the population have had a good childhood, on average, with regards to nutrition and such. But, if you have two people from the same population (in this case, countries), one being tall and the other one short, their stature is probably more attributable to their genes. You can't really say that one has had a healthier upbringing; they might have had an equally healthy upbringing, but they have different genes, which is (according to them) the biggest deciding factor for adult stature. If one of them is 5% taller, how can you know, without any more information, that that 5% isn't all because of genes? In fact, maybe the shorter person has had a healthy upbringing and, so to speak, achieved his full stature potential, while the taller person has had a relatively bad childhood and not really met his tallness potential with regards to his genetic make-up.
- muyuu 12y ago
  It's taking a symptom and turning to it as a goal. Not everything that makes you taller is healthy. Eating a lot of poultry that had been stuffed in growth hormones has been proven to increase growth. We can theoretically push growth at all means, doing things that we know are unhealthy. There's no proof that a diet that will make you the tallest will necessarily be the healthiest for you. Talking about "stature potential" is a bit misleading too. It implies that the more height you manage to get, the better. There's absolutely no scientific evidence to this. It's true that malnourishment will impede your growth, but that's just an extreme case. Seems like current Japan - for instance - is very healthy, has the longest life expectancy, but they are on the short side compared to Europe or North America. I'm much taller than average and I'm quite sure that this isn't an advantage at all, except for specific tasks or sports. A lot more often it's a problem and I don't feel one bit superior to shorter people. There's a lot of bias towards "taller is better" regardless of any other consideration. It stops just short of eugenics to achieve taller people.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > Talking about "stature potential" is a bit misleading too. It implies that the more height you manage to get, the better. You're right. I didn't intend to imply that. Just because someone has achieved their "potential", ie. have grown as tall as one might expect them to based on their genes, does not necessarily mean that it was good that they did so. Maybe they would have been better off health-wise if they grew shorter than that; what height would be optimal (or: what percentage of their """""height potential""""") would be hard to guess, I reckon.
    - muyuu 12y ago
      You still seem to imply that there is a maximum height potential, and getting closer to it, is better. This just seems to be a very inaccurate model. All accounts point to the fact that there is a whole range of heights that you can achieve while living a perfectly healthy lifestyle and nutrition, and that you can fail to reach this range, or exceed it, by excess or defect of some elements in your lifestyle and nutrition. You can even stay within this range while being unhealthy because height is by no means a perfect or even a good measure of health. It's a very loose measure only in rather extreme situations, and a decent measure for whole populations under some circumstances. It is a proven fact that you can unhealthily push someone's growth during childhood. Completeness of nutrition is mostly a non-factor across the Western World when it comes to height. Exercise is a bigger factor as many kids slow down their metabolism by lack of exercise. Migration of Mexicans and Asians into the US is a bigger factor too. These people are healthy, they are just typically shorter. There is no problem at all with that in itself. Albert Einstein was average Ashkenazi jewish at 5 ft 8~9. Nikola Tesla was your typical tall Balkan man (some accounts measured him at up to 6 ft 6). Does it matter? Should we be trying to push up the height of the jewish by eugenics? The whole "worry" is silly. Malnourishment also leads to lower weight. Do we try to maximise weight? no, right? because we realise it's stupid and it's quite evident that excess of weight is not good, and it doesn't even look good in most cultures currently. In fact there's a cultural trend about being unnaturally "lean". People need to immediately stop mixing up their personal aesthetic preferences, however common, with real issues like science and health.

I also find the "taller is better" a bit unscientific. So, 10, 20 ft tall is better?

by muyuu 12y ago

I also find the "taller is better" a bit unscientific. So, 10, 20 ft tall is better?

Dewie 12y ago

There certainly seems to a popular opinion/belief that tallness is inherently good; describing a person as tall seems to often be a compliment (at least for men). But I'm not sure that is the case for this article. It seems to be saying that overall tallness in a general population might indicate that the people of the population have had a good childhood, on average, with regards to nutrition and such. But, if you have two people from the same population (in this case, countries), one being tall and the other one short, their stature is probably more attributable to their genes. You can't really say that one has had a healthier upbringing; they might have had an equally healthy upbringing, but they have different genes, which is (according to them) the biggest deciding factor for adult stature. If one of them is 5% taller, how can you know, without any more information, that that 5% isn't all because of genes? In fact, maybe the shorter person has had a healthy upbringing and, so to speak, achieved his full stature potential, while the taller person has had a relatively bad childhood and not really met his tallness potential with regards to his genetic make-up.

muyuu 12y ago
It's taking a symptom and turning to it as a goal. Not everything that makes you taller is healthy. Eating a lot of poultry that had been stuffed in growth hormones has been proven to increase growth. We can theoretically push growth at all means, doing things that we know are unhealthy. There's no proof that a diet that will make you the tallest will necessarily be the healthiest for you. Talking about "stature potential" is a bit misleading too. It implies that the more height you manage to get, the better. There's absolutely no scientific evidence to this. It's true that malnourishment will impede your growth, but that's just an extreme case. Seems like current Japan - for instance - is very healthy, has the longest life expectancy, but they are on the short side compared to Europe or North America. I'm much taller than average and I'm quite sure that this isn't an advantage at all, except for specific tasks or sports. A lot more often it's a problem and I don't feel one bit superior to shorter people. There's a lot of bias towards "taller is better" regardless of any other consideration. It stops just short of eugenics to achieve taller people.
- Dewie 12y ago
  > Talking about "stature potential" is a bit misleading too. It implies that the more height you manage to get, the better. You're right. I didn't intend to imply that. Just because someone has achieved their "potential", ie. have grown as tall as one might expect them to based on their genes, does not necessarily mean that it was good that they did so. Maybe they would have been better off health-wise if they grew shorter than that; what height would be optimal (or: what percentage of their """""height potential""""") would be hard to guess, I reckon.
  - muyuu 12y ago
    You still seem to imply that there is a maximum height potential, and getting closer to it, is better. This just seems to be a very inaccurate model. All accounts point to the fact that there is a whole range of heights that you can achieve while living a perfectly healthy lifestyle and nutrition, and that you can fail to reach this range, or exceed it, by excess or defect of some elements in your lifestyle and nutrition. You can even stay within this range while being unhealthy because height is by no means a perfect or even a good measure of health. It's a very loose measure only in rather extreme situations, and a decent measure for whole populations under some circumstances. It is a proven fact that you can unhealthily push someone's growth during childhood. Completeness of nutrition is mostly a non-factor across the Western World when it comes to height. Exercise is a bigger factor as many kids slow down their metabolism by lack of exercise. Migration of Mexicans and Asians into the US is a bigger factor too. These people are healthy, they are just typically shorter. There is no problem at all with that in itself. Albert Einstein was average Ashkenazi jewish at 5 ft 8~9. Nikola Tesla was your typical tall Balkan man (some accounts measured him at up to 6 ft 6). Does it matter? Should we be trying to push up the height of the jewish by eugenics? The whole "worry" is silly. Malnourishment also leads to lower weight. Do we try to maximise weight? no, right? because we realise it's stupid and it's quite evident that excess of weight is not good, and it doesn't even look good in most cultures currently. In fact there's a cultural trend about being unnaturally "lean". People need to immediately stop mixing up their personal aesthetic preferences, however common, with real issues like science and health.