"Short people got no reason to live." Singer Randy Newman, still not living down "Short People"
Try singing about being tall. Try sitting in the middle seat of an airplane. Go ahead, find jeans, a snowboard jacket or a bed that fits right. Prone to slouching and shrinking, tall people will never be accused of having a commanding complex named after Napoleon. Tall people, in fact, are a rather soft-spoken, introverted subset of humans, who always field these profound questions:
Did you play basketball? (You better be good.)
How's the weather up there? (Resist striking questioner.)
Could you please reach up on that shelf and get me those 24 rolls of toilet paper?
The vertically endowed face unspeakable challenges, and these obstacles continue to mount. First, university researchers a few years ago calculated that an inch of height is worth an additional $789 a year in salary. For example, a 6-foot-tall man will earn about $5,500 more than an equally qualified 5-foot-6 male. The underlying message is height equals stature and the perception of leadership abilities. We want to look up to people. Tall people, our warrior kings, will lead and protect us.
Who needs that responsibility? Do you think it's easy making $5,500 more than the next shorter guy? Have you ever tried to live with that guilt? And what if you are the exception to that statistical average?
Two economists from Princeton have done the salary-height studies one better. According to researchers Anne Case and Christina Paxson, tall people earn more on average because they are smarter. There it is. End of story - but not this story. Tall people, already burdened by financial success and an adoring Republic, now have to live with the fact they are intellectually superior even if they are prone to slouching and shrinking.
How does this happen?
"As early as age 3 - before schooling has had a chance to play a role - and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote the Princeton authors in their 2006 study, "Stature and Status: Height, Ability and Labor Market Outcomes."
The researchers stress the importance of proper nutrition received in the womb and in the first three years of life as both height and cognitive ability determinants. The study is clearly designed to be read by tall (i.e. smart) people, given the use of the terms "cognitive ability" and "determinants." Not surprising, then, to further read in the study: "As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher-paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence."
In other words, there are, on average, more tall company executives, managers and salesmen than tall mining machine operators and farmers. (What would we all do without farmers? Not fuss about our height, for one thing.)
With its emphasis on early nutrition and prenatal care, the Princeton study suggests the so-called "height premium" has less to do with social biases or expectations. But the workplace apparently goes to great heights to hire the tall. In his book Blink,The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell polled about half the companies on the Fortune 500 list and found that most of the chief executive officers are about 6 feet tall (and mostly white men - shocking!). Gladwell reported about 14.5 percent of the U.S. population are men six feet and over - yet the figure is 58 percent for Fortune 500 CEO's. Obviously, something is going on besides a power resume or 5-handicap in golf.
"We see a tall person, and we swoon," Gladwell writes. "Most of us ... automatically associate leadership ability with imposing physical stature. We have a sense, in our minds, of what a leader is supposed to look like."
He's supposed to look tall.
Even our anti-heroes are tall. Frankenstein, King Kong, Darth Vader - they all had trouble finding jeans. We bet Snoop Dogg always gets an aisle seat. The country certainly elects tall, with the exception of John Kerry. Look at our presidents: The voguish Abraham Lincoln was 6 feet 4. Thomas Jefferson, LBJ and Bill Clinton were no runts, either. Ronald Reagan looked tall. If the presidential election were held today and based solely on the candidate's height, it would be a very silly election; more to the point, Sen. Barack Obama could sweep. At over 6 feet, Obama could well dwarf the field - that is, until former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced this week. Really, how did the not-tall Michael Dukakis or Ross Perot stand a chance? Dennis Kucinich. Please.
Tall sells. Models are tall. Actors are generally tall - John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Samuel L. Jackson, Vince Vaughn, and the finest actor of this generation, the 6-foot-4-inch David Hasselhoff. By natural law, basketball players are tall - Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, and down in Rockville, there's a young man named Sun Ming Ming who is 7-foot-9. Go ahead and ask: He does play basketball, for the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association. Based on the research, Ming should be making $16,569 more a year than a six-foot basketball player.
A 6-foot-5 satellite radio personality made something like $305 million last year. And we can't even see Howard Stern on the radio.
Hank Reinke does not have a radio show - he runs a business that makes chocolate decorating machines, which, technically, makes him a machine operator despite his height. Reinke is 6-feet-6 and president of the 40-member Baltimore Tall Club, a group that promotes the fellowship of the tall. In his back story, Reinke was always the tallest in his class, was always called on more.
"From childhood, the automatic response is that you must be smarter," Reinke says. "People expect you to know the answer, so you have to learn the answer. It forces you to be more on top of your learning game." Learning!? See what tall people have to endure?
In light of the much-quoted Princeton study, Reinke was asked whether he is smarter than, say, a man who is 5-foot-8. Smart people generally don't like to generalize, but the Tall Club president confidently fields the question. "Smarter? In some cases, I would say yes," he says.
"But now I'm going to have people 5-8 coming and hitting me in the kneecaps."
So, what constitutes tall? According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average American male is 5-foot-9. So, 6 feet is certainly on the tall side. "Most of you would give your left lift to be this tall, rich and brilliant," Sports Illustrated's Steve Rushin columnized. At 6-foot-5, Rushin is taller than 99.59 percent of the U.S. population: "I'm 8 inches smarter than Einstein and 7 inches smarter than Bill Gates."
But how tall was he at 16? Stephen Hall, in his book on height called Size Matters, relays evidence that suggests a male's height at 16 determines how much he will be paid in adulthood. At this key age, a boy's confidence and self-esteem are on a shaky precipice. He might grow several inches at 18, but at 16, his mind might be made up about how he views his stature and self-worth.
"Virtually every developing human being wants to be taller. You could even argue that the desire is an anchoring thread in the weave of human nature. Throughout early childhood, children are confronted with the 'unfairness' of small size," Hall writes.
After all, no kid wants to be called short, a midget, a runt - or, in Hall's case, a squirt. No one wants to be picked last on a sports team or, worse, get beaten up. No kid wants to hear "he's short for his age," as parents disseminate the latest update from the doctor's height chart. A newborn's first tour of duty is to be measured. Since birth, every child is pathologically aware of his size in relation to everything.
"Size matters to all of us in some deep, fundamental way that connects the internal life of vulnerability and incompleteness to the external life of culture, history, morality, and human endeavor," Hall says. That's pretty darn smart coming from a guy who is 5-feet-5.
No matter how tall - or successful - a man becomes, his self-esteem has been arguably imprinted at an early age. Writing for The New York Times in 1996, Garry Trudeau said these immortal words: "I have the soul of a shrimp." A poet or jazz musician couldn't have said it better.
Trudeau recalled being 14 and drafted into a group of school kids called the "Midgets." Determined to overthrow his genetic destiny, Trudeau would hang from door- frames and perform assorted floor exercises in hopes of stretching his limbs. The regime did not produce successful results. But at 17, Trudeau shot up 6 inches. He was a new boy.
He would become a 6-foot-plus tall cartoonist and creator of the immeasurably successful Doonesbury strip. But Trudeau has never forgotten his formidable midget years. "For the rest of my days, I shall be a recovering short person."
At least his kneecaps will be safe.
rob.hiaasen@baltsun.com