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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

> "Tall people tend to have a longer life expectancy, with a reduced risk of heart disease. On the other hand, there is some evidence that they are at greater risk of certain cancers, such as colorectal, postmenopausal breast and ovarian cancers."

This is actually false. When controlled for childhood nutrition, shorter people have much higher life expectancies Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... (among other sources)

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This is a better link:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

And this link does show a relationship, albeit far from being as large as the slate article seems to suggest. I'd rather trust a PLOS publication honestly.

That article is all over the place. Centenarians in Japan are 4 inches shorter than 75-year-olds? No mention of controlling for diet during upbringing, nor that a human shrinks as they age. The taller half of Europe has fewer centenarians per capita than the shorter half? No mention of climate, which is more troublesome to the elderly in northern Europe. Scandanvians have more heart disease than Iberians? No mention of dietary control. Sardinian soldiers who reach age 70 live a little longer if short? What about if they don't reach age 70? What if more short Sardinian soldiers die in their 60s?

There isn't much in the way of apples-to-apples comparison in that article.

Here is a list of studies from the nih with the same conclusion:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/

The research is clear - controlled for other factors, shorter people live longer.

To those that have this cited to them regularly (and always by short people) - the correct response is "yeah, but you're living longer whilst short"

I may be short, but at least I can fully extend my legs on economy flights.

Beat that, tall person.

I'm 6'8 and my girlfriend is 5'2. Usually I find our arguments to be the opposite way round in that "you have it better", e.g. My girlfriend needs a stool to reach the top shelf of the cupboards, but I have to time my steps as to not hit my head on door frames.

I think the worst one was learning to drive and then the many frustrating trips trying to find a car I could fit in.

Once you can reach that tall cupboard the returns start diminishing fast. Pros/Cons are very lifestyle dependent.

Most advantages of being tall are based on peer perception, which is always behind the curve. The trend is that it's no longer as advantageous to be tall, just like it's no longer as advantageous to be strong, or to be able to run fast. In an information economy world, and with increasing global population, being more efficient on a per-human basis, being more intelligent, will become more important factors than the more archaic advantages like strength and traits of physical dominance.

Advantageous like "people look up to tall people" are based on perception, and perception changes. For example more people used to like slightly chubby girls, and now our perception puts attractiveness at thin girls. However things like "smaller people consume less energy" or "smaller people live longer" are fundamental and if those advantages are conducive to the future then that's where the curve guiding perception is heading.

Other examples of changing perceptions are: small feet in China, large butts in Florida. It took some time, but eventually people realized that small feet bore no real advantages and perception changed.

And as most people have no choice in their height, arguing for/against a certain height is not much more different than arguing why certain races/cultures are better/worse.

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