What’s Good about Being Shorter

There’s no doubt that taller, bigger people have many advantages in our society. They are more imposing, stronger, great athletes, and make more money. However, in our adoration of taller height, we have turned a blind eye on the many real benefits of smaller human size. As a result most short and average height people are unaware of the many inherent benefits related to their height. In proceeding with my exploration of the little know facts, I hope tall people can avoid taking my findings personally. After all, history has shown good and bad humans come in all sizes. In pointing out the advantages of shorter, smaller size, I am not denigrating tall or big individuals—my quarrel is with a future world population of billions of taller, bigger people who require enormous amounts of food, water, energy and natural resources. For example, an across the board reduction of 10% in height, while maintaining the same body proportions, would save enormous amounts of resources as discussed later. Thus, the question of whether tall or short is a desirable configuration for future humans depends on the relationship between height and human survival. You are probably thinking I’m a short person trying to support my physical build. Although I have shrunk in height due to my age, when I was young in the 1950s, I was above average in height at 5’10”. Most US male adults were about 5’8“ or 5’9”. At that time, I also believed shorter height was an undesirable biological factor in life. However, my research into aging, longevity, physical performance and survival of humanity changed my mind. Since we can’t cover over 40 years of research in this article, the reader is referred to www.humanbodysize.com and www. researchgate.net for a list of publications or copies related to the ramifications of increasing body height and weight. The following material covers background information, longevity findings, athletic performance, bravery, intelligence, outstanding achievements, resource requirements and nutritional considerations. I started studying the relation of height and longevity in the 1970s. My first paper appeared in Science Digest in 1978 [1]. I subsequently discussed my findings with Lowell Storms of the University of California in San Diego. We decided to collaborate on a new paper and used data on deceased veterans from the San Diego VA Medical Center. We also looked at the Baseball Encyclopedia that provided the heights, weights and ages of thousands of deceased baseball players. When we analyzed the data provided, we found shorter veterans and players lived