Short men and fat women 'get fewer chances in life', research says

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/650785/Short-men-fat-women-less-chances-life

by MollyR • 10 years ago

34 61 10 years ago

express.co.uk

pklausler2• 10 years ago

Fewer.

SquirrelOnFire• 10 years ago

's British. The Queen's and allat.

eric_h2• 10 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY (Stephen Fry explaining his position on this particular form of pedantry, amongst other things).

It rubs me the wrong way as well, since my parents (well, my mother; my father grew up bilingual, so precision in english was certainly not as strong a part of his upbringing) were quite insistent that I used the correct adjectives and conjugations in english as I was growing up.

However, the less vs. fewer debate is over, common usage replacing 'fewer' with 'less' vastly outnumbers proper usage of fewer v. less; time to drop the pedantry as it is of nebulous benefit to begin with (in this particular case).

"You can't pour a glass of <some obviously enumerable item>" really doesn't matter anymore, and I feel the difference in the adjective never really conferred any meaning at all (unless, perhaps, the item you were speaking of was not obviously enumerable, but I can't think of any reasonable examples of that).

pklausler2• 10 years ago

If X has a plural Xs, say "fewer Xs", else "less X". That simple rule will get you the right usage most of the time.

dang• 10 years ago

Agreed.

Mz10• 10 years ago

Yeah, this is incredibly old news. We already know this. When are they going to investigate why or come up with a new hypothesis?

My hypothesis: Most women reject short men as mates and most men reject fat women as mates. A successful marriage tends to strongly correlate to socioeconomic success, longevity, etc.

guard-of-terra5• 10 years ago

"Most women reject short men as mates"

Are you sure? Because this, why being `obvious' after 15 seconds of thinking, may be or not be true.

My anecdotal observations reveal an unusual number of pairs where a tall woman happily dates below average height man. It works the other way too, short women often date tall men.

Anyway, no person really need most people of opposite genre accepting them as a mate. A few is usually enough.

If you'll prove that tall men have more successful marriages, it would be a huge deal, so I assume that no such correlation exist.

Successful marriage is a complicated thing and I assume that its relation to ease of dating and partner selectivity is very non-linear.

Mz10• 10 years ago

This is pretty well established. Most women, even quite short women, want taller men.

My ex husband was slightly shorter than me, so it isn't all women. But, yes, bias by women against short men is a well known thing. If they will not even accept a first date because of your height, the odds of marriage go down pretty seriously. You need to get your foot in the door and get to the altar as some minimum prerequisites for achieving a successful marriage.

colmvp• 10 years ago

Online dating stats, at least from OKTrends, show tall men have more sexual partners than men below the average height. I also wouldn't be surprised if that also holds true for receiving more responses compared to short men.

Furthermore, my recorded stats of women's profiles in the online dating site Match.com show a significantly higher number of women prefer to date men of their own height or taller than women who are willing to date men shorter than them. Plus, it's also not uncommon for short women to exclusively date tall men, whereas it's very rare for even tall women to date guys who are significantly shorter than them.

prawn• 10 years ago

"My anecdotal observations reveal an unusual number of pairs where a tall woman happily dates above average height man. It works the other way too, short women often date tall men."

Aren't you saying the same thing as Mz? That women will favour men taller than themselves? A tall woman will often be shorter than an above-average-height man.

Spooky23• 10 years ago

Tall women get screwed in other ways -- guys tend to be intimidated by them, and the more assholely among us will consider them "fat".

In my unscientific observation, tall woman / short dude is usually linked to a relatively older woman.

mobilefriendly3• 10 years ago

Height strongly signals healthy genes, longevity, and access to good nutrition... stands to reason that women would evolve to select for height when choosing a mate.

Mz10• 10 years ago

I am aware of that piece of it. But I think it is more complicated than that and this is probably not the right place to discuss it in earnest. I post as openly female on HN. I am vastly outnumbered by men. Given that situation, some topics are just a great way to get down voted to hell over.

colund2• 10 years ago

What's up with depressing topics on HN?

tristanj• 10 years ago

I don't think this is unique to HN. Western news in general tends to cover negative stories more often than positive ones. Quite a few studies have been done trying to explain the effect; there's no bulletproof theory yet, but one theory is that people are more likely to read negative articles than positive articles and journalists are just catering to demand. http://hij.sagepub.com/content/19/3/360?etoc

Mz10• 10 years ago

I sometimes post positive stuff, both here and elsewhere. It tends to get little to no attention.

This is possibly in part because good news tends to not be a danger to your welfare, whereas bad news is something we need to pay attention to for purposes of self preservation. Similarly, you see endless arguing online in part because there is more to say if you disagree with someone then if you agree.

I largely stopped following mainstream news years ago because news = bad news.

colund2• 10 years ago

I disagree that we need to pay attention to negative news. In fact I think this is a misinterpretation of people who use too much of their 'left' brain. I think there are much more important factors for who gets successful in relationships.

- Confidence and good self presentation - Caring about and listening to others - Not living an immature life limited to travelling and partying but being reliable and solid and 'future proof'

I disagree with the downvotes my comments received. I think depressing news are a threat to people's psychological well-being and should therefore not be encouraged.

It's like trying to get good at a musical instrument or sport via focusing all your energy on your what you're not good at. Not a good way to spend your energy. Try passion, hope, love and daring to make a leap...

sixQuarks6• 10 years ago

Being a short man is particularly frustrating, because unlike being fat, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Call a man short, or say you only date tall men, nobody bats an eye. Call a woman fat, or say you'll never date a fat woman, everyone goes nuts.

Mz10• 10 years ago

On the one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, women get to look forward to being kicked to the curb for being too old. Past a certain age, even men your age will act like "You are too old to be fuckable" and no one bats an eyelash at that either. Even otherwise "enlightened" men routinely say they will happily date a woman who is 10 years younger, but have zero interest in a woman more than a year or two older.

guard-of-terra5• 10 years ago

"men routinely say they will happily date a woman who is 10 years younger"

This also have consequence of reducing chances for younger men who would like to compete for these younger women too.

Those are same years when adult personality forms, hence we're seeing some really broken men personalities.

That then boomerangs to women in form of abusive, ignorant or insecure men.

maxxxxx2• 10 years ago

On the other hand if you don't have plenty of money as a man of certain age you are pretty much toast too.

The good thing is that there are plenty of men whom would date a woman their age and plenty of women that would date a guy who isn't rich. They are just not as vocal and live their lives quietly.

yarou• 10 years ago

I guess I'm an anomaly and counterexample to your analysis.

I tend to prefer the company of older women, up to 10 years older than myself. I have this preference as I've found women that are younger than me often don't know what they want.

I find it easier to have an...arrangement with older women.

sixQuarks6• 10 years ago

That's not an apples to apples comparison. Old age happens to ALL women - and ALL women are young at some point, thus it doesn't affect any one individual adversely. Short stature only affects SOME men, and is a huge disadvantage throughout life to the individual.

Someone• 10 years ago

Nothing? It is not for the faint of heart, and I wouldn't recommend it (but I'm not in the target audience, so who am I to make that call?) but there is http://www.shortsupport.org/Health/Leg-Lengthening/procedure.... Difference apparently can be up to four inches.

And of course, if you start early, there is the Messi approach of using growth hormones.

sixQuarks6• 10 years ago

I knew somebody would mention this. OK, there IS something that can be done, but I believe it only works if you do it while you're young.

mobilefriendly3• 10 years ago

Yeah I was annoyed the article conflated height and weight. Height cannot be controlled, but obesity is the result of poor lifestyle choices (except for rare medical situations). I think most people assume being overweight correlates with other bad habits like poor self-control and general personal sloppiness. My own weight has fluctuated over the years between normal and obese and I'm definitely more on the ball, much more confident, and higher energy when I'm fit.

gohrt• 10 years ago

Hi, generally sloppy person with poor self-control, checking in. Thin as a rail. Metabolism is a scientific fact.

Fat people who diet and exercise become big built people.

Skinny people who eat and don't work out don't become fat in a way that can be seen through street/business clothing.

maxxxxx2• 10 years ago

You could also add shy people, nonathletic people, ugly people, disabled people and other groups to that list.

nilkn2• 10 years ago

I'm a short guy (5'8") and don't doubt this is true. However, I also strongly believe that it can be completely overcome and then some. It would be a little immodest for me to explain why I believe that, but suffice it to say that my height has not held me back in any appreciable way in any area of life. I suppose it might matter more if I were to seek the Presidency, but the present evidence is that it would still be possible for me to at least be a temporary front-runner for a nomination (see Rubio, Cruz, Paul, etc.). Not bad.

In fact, there are a lot of elements of my height that I've always enjoyed. It's made me naturally athletic, in the sense that I've always been very agile. I've never not been able to trivially do pull-ups. I can do things in gymnastics without training that some much taller people with twice my strength cannot do with training. I also think that while taller people can be viewed as more dominating or powerful, at the same time shorter people can be viewed as more endearing, relatable, and morally innocent. I honestly believe that on more than one occasion I've been given the benefit of the doubt in some situation because my physical stature caused me to be viewed with more empathy and with less of a competitive spirit.

guard-of-terra5• 10 years ago

"I suppose it might matter more if I were to seek the Presidency"

Unless you want to do it in Russia :-/ We literally had garden gnome for "president" forced on us.

No offense to capable short people here.

sndean• 10 years ago

I didn't realize Putin was 5'6"-5'7". Would've thought ~6'0". I guess his image manufacturing works pretty well.

chiaro• 10 years ago

Well good news is you can always surround yourself with shorter people like him.

Jtsummers• 10 years ago

You're not short, at least not in the US. You're not tall, either. Current average is 5'10", with a standard deviation of 4". You're very nearly average.

nilkn2• 10 years ago

I don't doubt that statistic is true for the US in general, but it's definitely possible to end up in some small micro-segment of the population where the average male height is much closer to 6' than 5'10" and where heights of 6'2"+ or even 6'4"+ are somewhat common. I believe that through some sequence of events I've found myself mostly existing in such a segment of the population. For instance, I'm the shortest male in my family (both sides), including at least one cousin who isn't even done growing yet.

77pt772• 10 years ago

I was finding that comment very strange.

He's not tall but not really short either.

vatotemking2• 10 years ago

I'm a short guy (5'8")

For what its worth the avg height from where I'm from (Asia) is 5'6". You're a giant here.

autotune2• 10 years ago

You mean there's a whole continent where I am considered average? This is great!

ChrisDutrow• 10 years ago

I'm a short guy too (5'8" as well). Its mostly been a disadvantage in my life.

From a strategic point of view, its important to understand what our strengths and weaknesses are. I refer to this as "playing the cards you're dealt."

However, I think very often people focus on the ways that people are prejudiced against them (and their other disadvantages) in unhealthy ways: becoming demoralized, becoming angry, and using prejudice as an excuse to fail.

To be successful, you just gotta knuckle down and do it. Its good to strategically recognize and respond to your individual disadvantages, but emotionally worrying about them is not good.

Height, weight and race are feasible things to measure in a study, and thus find statistical variations. But there are a ton of factors that affect success, here are a few that I think make a big difference but are either harder to measure or not acknowledged as much:

* Feelings of ambition

* Ideas that you were exposed to when you were growing up

* If your parents are savvy people

* Your own feelings of entitlement

* Emotional predisposition

* Who your parents (and other family/friends) know

* Social intelligence

* Desire to be around people

domfletcher• 10 years ago

I'm not saying there isn't hard evidence for this but The Express is a not a reputable newspaper and it's articles should always be looked at with a very skeptical eye. In case that wasn't obvious from clicking around their site for 20-30 seconds.

joolze• 10 years ago

So this is basically a study on success as related to self confidence? Why is this news?

Also one of these conditions is basically curable. Two once men become more fashion accepting.

autotune2• 10 years ago

What kind of "chances" did they take into account as far as professions go? One of the joys of working with software and servers, for example, and being able to make a living online in general, is code doesn't care if you are a mutated, half-bird, half-walrus, half-human living in a cave in some mountainous region in the wild. As long as you have wifi access, can write efficient and readable code, and communicate over text, you can use almost any picture you want for your avatar on github and contribute to open source projects and get your work noticed, and likely get hired for it at some point assuming you can communicate clearly with your voice as well.

Short men and fat women 'get fewer chances in life', research says

Related Stories