Did you ever wondered about the health impacts associated with being tall or short? Be sure to read this entire article for the theories which connect health pros and cons with height.

7 Health Impacts Associated with Being Tall or Short

From an evolutionary perspective, there’s a price for enjoying the perks of being tall: a shorter lifespan. As the theory goes, “growing faster and being bigger will mean that you’ll have a shorter life, and we’ve seen that in rats,” says Mary Schooling, a professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health and Health Policy.

 

But in humans, how the theory plays out isn’t quite clear. While certain genes have been linked to both short stature and long life, and shorter populations also seem to live longer, it’s tough to know whether stature itself influences lifespan or if characteristics like nutrition, socioeconomic status and disease risk are responsible.

 

Not only are tall people more injury-prone, but their injuries are often worse than those experienced by the shorter set. “Taller patients, when they take a fall, they’re going to go a lot further and … the impact will be higher,” Truumees says, noting that older tall people have higher rates of hip fracture.

 

Some data suggests lanky people may also be crippled by slower reactions times, he adds, since their nerve impulses have farther to travel. Professional athletes, for one, know the consequences of this phenomenon all too well: Towering players, Truumees says, tend to have higher rates of injury and take longer to recover than their littler teammates. Full article…

Changing your physical height is not a likely option. Consider maximizing your advantages by fully understanding these height-associated health impacts. Likewise, you may find several ways to minimize your potential disadvantages. That’s the tall and short of it.