Size Matters: How Height Affects the Health, Happiness, and Success of Boys and the Men They Become » (None)

STEPHEN S. HALL is the author of Merchants of Immortality and three other a

An award-winning journalist tackles the hot topic of male body image and shows how physical size during childhood affects our psychology, social status, relationships, and income as adults.

With a mix of fresh research, incisive reportage, and bracing candor, Size Matters traces the surprising history of society’s bias against shortness and reveals how short people can and do thrive in spite of this insidious bigotry. Drawing on his own childhood experiences (he was shorter than 99 percent of boys his age), Stephen Hall explains the evolution of the growth chart, the biology of childhood aggression, and the wrenching phenomenon of bullying. He explores the factors that determine why one child’s small stature may lead to anguish while another short child develops an emotional resilience that will enrich his later life. Weaving together recent findings from the fields of animal behavior, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Hall assesses the role of physical size in mating success and argues that the alpha male may not be king of the mountain after all.
Hall also pinpoints the social forces that create and cash in on our anxieties about size, from bulked-up superhero action figures to pharmaceutical companies selling growth hormone to increase a child’s height -- at a cost of up to $40,000 a year. He introduces us to families who have agonized over whether to make that huge investment. He explains new research showing that a person’s height as a teenager has lifelong psychological consequences. He even tracks down kids he bullied in elementary school and kids who bullied him in high school to show that these childhood encounters have lasting effects on our adult lives. Along the way, Hall builds a persuasive case against societal attitudes that make size (or any difference) matter and argues forcefully that being short has psychological, social, and biological advantages. Size Matters will raise the consciousness -- and the spirits -- of any short male and anyone who cares about him.

The New York Times - Scott Stossel

As a man of a mere 5 feet 5 and three-quarters inches himself, Hall is on something of a quest, seeking not just to understand the science and culture of stature but also to come to terms with what the cartoonist Garry Trudeau has called his inner shrimp that distinctive I m smaller than the rest of the world so I hope I don t get beaten up outlook that is imprinted at an early age and never dispelled, no matter what our final adult heights. Mixing traditional science reporting with personal anecdote, Hall ranges widely across popular culture and the scientific literature to explore such issues as what the average height of a population can reveal about culture and society (Why are the Dutch so tall? And why are Americans becoming relatively shorter?), and how the Food and Drug Administration s approval of human growth hormone as a treatment for undersize children in 2003 changed the politics and science of height.

Introduction 1

PART I THE LITTLE ONES 1. “Chunky” 29 2. “Longitude” and “Pondus Absolutum” 45 3. A Brief Interruption for a Bicycle Accident 68

PART II “MY, HOW YOU’VE GROWN . . .” 4. The Invention of Childhood 77 5. The Bully Inside Me 91 6. Runts, Sneaks, and Dominators 110

PART III THE SPURT 7. “To Grow Hairy” 131 8. Belittled 150 9. The Prussian Curse 168

PART IV TIMING 10. Timing Is Everything 191 11. “Man in His Perfection” 215 12. The Emperor’s New Medicine Cabinet 242

PART V STATURE AS METAPHOR 13. College and Beyond 263 14. The Tallest People on Earth 283 15. Final Height 300

Epilogue 320 Notes 328 Acknowledgments 374 Index 377