For the vertically well-endowed, the news it contains is mostly good. Tall people on average enjoy higher IQs, fatter paychecks, more successful careers, and longer lives. We have a better chance of becoming an Army general or chief executive of a Fortune 500 company, and height appears to confer an advantage in everything from climbing the academic ladder to winning an Oscar. “In the last thirty-one presidential elections,’’ the author reports, “the tall candidate has won the popular vote twenty-six times.’’
Taller males are especially lucky; on top of all the other advantages, we’re way more popular with women. “Tall men are the most romantically successful group on earth, bar none: more successful than rich people, accomplished people, and educated people.’’
There are downsides, of course. Tall people have trouble finding clothes, cost more to feed, and often find the world an uncomfortable place physically and emotionally - as the author did when her height contributed to the miseries of adolescence. Teenage girls who don’t like their height are twice as likely to be depressed as the general population, and tall women have it tough in some ways too; they have a harder time finding a mate and are less likely to reproduce.
The scariest news, for me, is that tall people are more prone to cancer - particularly very tall men. “Tall cancers are cancers where sex hormones play a role - namely breast and prostate cancer,’’ Cohen reports. Among the possible explanations: Tall people eat a lot more, which can elevate a key growth hormone that encourages cell replication, or tall people tend to reach puberty earlier and experience longer exposure to adult levels of sex hormones.
