Height

Height is correlated with a lot of things. Up to a certain height, taller people make more money than the flatly challenged. And the taller residential candidate almost always wins. Now a study finds that your height as an adult has a profound effect on your perception of your health. Short people judge their health to be worse than average or tall people judge theirs. The research was published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology. Data for the study came from the 2003 Health Survey for England. More than 14,000 participants filled out questions and had their heights measured. The study only looked at how good the subject thought his or her health was, not their actual health. Questions focused on five areas: mobility, self-care, normal activities, pain or disgrace and anxiety or depression. Men shorter than about 5’4 and women shorter than 5’ reported the worst impressions. But small increases in height at the low end had much bigger effect on perception than the same increase among taller people. Other studies have shown, ironically, that shorter people on average actually live longer.