July 31, 2013

"The fact that tall people die younger appears to be an immutable physical reality."

"A short person is like a Honda Civic: compact and efficient. Tall people are Cadillac Escalades. With all that extra weight and machinery, something’s just bound to go wrong."

Despite that, most people want to be taller.

They also want to be gas guzzlers. In the language of weigh-loss obsession, they want to have a fat-burning, boosted metabolism. Who expresses joy at their body's efficient use of calories, the way they'd brag about their car's gas mileage? But what if life span correlates with the number of calories burned? That question is beyond the scope of the linked article, which is only about the health problem of tallness.