Is Bigger Better?
By Ralph Keyes
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently noted that some sperm banks won’t accept donors shorter than 5’9″. Since he himself falls in that category, Brooks seemed a bit aggrieved by this fact, but didn’t question its premise: that bigger is better. On the same day on the same page, Times columnist Paul Krugman’s column pointed out that Americans have grown relatively shorter than other cohorts in recent decades, not just compared to the humongous Dutch but to Poles, Portugese and Hungarians as well. Krugman’s column is interesting as much for what it doesn’t say as what it does. According to him our shrinkage is an indication of our decline, due perhaps to eating too much junk food. This reflects an implicit assumption that bigger is better. From a Princeton economist who admits to 5’7″!
Is bigger actually better? Not necessarily. True there is irrefutable evidence that taller men are paid more, have enhanced mating options, and excel in certain sports. But there are other activities in which larger bodies are penalized. They don’t fit so well in space ships or Formula One racing cars. The lower center of gravity of smaller bodies better suits them to skiing, diving, martial arts, and soccer. In a broader sense shortness is the ecologically preferred size. Not only do smaller people consume less food, energy and fabric clothing, they produce less trash and emit less carbon dioxide. Among the causes of global warming, one might include the increased size of many nationality groups. There is clear evidence that smaller people live longer than taller people. A San Diego engineer named Thomas Samaras has made this case for years, most recently in his co-authored 2007 book Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling. One reason is that smaller bodies are more likely to survive car crashes. According to one study certain cancers are more prevalent in taller bodies. We do know that the bigger the body, the less likely it is to survive a famine.
One topic that merits further exploration is the extent to which sex roles are influenced by relative size. To a greater extent than we’ve ever considered gender bias may be an artifact of size bias. The average American woman is four inches shorter than the average American man. Since we routinely connect size with strength (”big and strong”) it follows that — stereotypically — women as a group are less strong than men as a group. I emphasize stereotypically. When clingy dependency was the ideal, so was five-foot-two-eyes-of-blue. Even though the physical height gap between men and women has not narrowed, the taller-stronger look is now considered desirable on both sides of the gender aisle.
But how much is this simply a matter of fashion? As in basketball, tall people have a pronounced edge in cultural esthetics. To the American eye, more height is certainly preferable to less height. Alas, based on no evidence, our height-biased eyes include even those of the erudite smallish columnist Paul Krugman.
