Height anxiety refers to the anxiety people feel about their height due to societal pressures. It manifests as purchasing various height-enhancing products and even going to hospitals seeking height-increasing treatments. Height anxiety is related to commercial and social cultural influences, often misleading consumers into commercial traps or contributing to societal value biases.
As living standards improve, children’s heights are gradually increasing. Influenced by societal expectations, parents’ expectations for their children’s height are rising, creating what seems like an “era of fear of short stature.” Their children’s short stature has become a source of great distress for many parents—this is the so-called “height anxiety.” However, there are objective laws governing a person’s natural growth rate that cannot be defied. Instead of instilling the misconception that “the taller the better,” we should create a healthy living environment where children can exercise more, connect with nature, and develop freely in body and mind, allowing their natural development to take place. If we simply try to force growth, while height may increase, psychological maturity may not keep pace, ultimately leading to a severe imbalance between a child’s physical and psychological development.
Causes
Height Anxiety
Some observers say that the current societal phenomenon of “height anxiety” is largely a product of unhealthy commercial culture. Some businessmen exploit people’s fear of being short and lack of knowledge, setting up a series of commercial traps that deceive many parents and children. One netizen commented, “Only businesses are left advocating for being as tall as possible; otherwise, how would those shops selling height-increasing insoles and various so-called miraculous height-increasing devices survive?”
Utilitarian Purposes
Cultural scholar Tao Dongfeng once said that the culture of a consumer society is a culture of the body, the economy of a consumer society is a body economy, and the aesthetics of a consumer society are body aesthetics. However, people’s focus on appearance still largely serves utilitarian purposes, such as increasing their competitiveness in the job and marriage markets, and increasing their “physical capital.”
The Phenomenon
Height Anxiety On June 30, 2015, Wang Guoqiang, Vice Minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission and Director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, introduced that the average height of adult men and women aged 18 and above in China was 167.1cm and 155.8cm respectively, and the average weight was 66.2kg and 57.3kg respectively. Compared with 2002, both the height and weight of residents have increased. Comparing the data and looking at oneself in the mirror, there are both joys and sorrows.
In a time when tall, handsome, and wealthy people are envied, ignoring the difference in height is nothing more than an Ah Q mentality: We see how Pan Changjiang, a comedian on the Spring Festival Gala, has been humiliated year after year because of his height. In 2011, Wannan Medical College in Anhui Province recruited master’s graduates and actually called applicants aside to measure their height; men shorter than 170cm and women shorter than 160cm were prohibited from participating in the written test.
Although the average height of Chinese people has increased rapidly in recent years, the commercial hype and misleading ideas about “height” have almost simultaneously occurred. Height has become linked to workplace competitiveness, mate selection criteria, and even personal charm. Height is no longer an isolated statistic; its numerical “backdrop” reflects a multitude of issues, including living environment, economic status, welfare, health awareness, body culture, and height discrimination—all worthy of serious consideration.
Main Impacts
Social Factors
Height Anxiety
Height anxiety is an individual issue, but when the height of a group changes, things change. According to media reports, starting February 1, 2015, the height requirement for free admission to scenic spots in Jiangsu Province increased, granting free admission to children aged 6 and under or under 1.4 meters tall. In many parts of China, the height requirement for free admission for children is generally under 1.3 meters, and some even under 1.2 meters.
The results of the fourth national children’s physical survey released by the Ministry of Health on December 31, 2006, showed that the average height of Chinese children increased by 6 centimeters over 30 years. Clearly, children are “growing faster,” and the height limit for free tickets should also “grow.” This is a requirement for urban management posed by changes in population height. If the height limit doesn’t adapt to the reality of changing population physical conditions and stubbornly refuses to increase height, it will inevitably cause a huge social backlash.
In fact, as early as 2008, the Ministry of Railways issued a “Notice on Adjusting the Height Limit for Children’s Tickets,” raising the upper limit of the standard height for children eligible for half-price tickets from 1.4 meters to 1.5 meters. This shows that height is not isolated; it has a social dimension under certain circumstances.
People generally admire and encourage tall and strong individuals, and tall stature has become a form of worship. However, increased height also hides certain social risks. Studies have shown that for every 5 centimeters increase in a person’s height, even without an increase in population, the increase in height alone would require an additional 10% of clothing and 16% of food supply. It is said that if feet were one-third larger, the United States would need to use an additional 10,000 square kilometers of leather annually to produce shoes. MIT futurist Melzley warns that people often only notice the crises brought to the world by population growth, failing to recognize the impact of increasing human height on the living environment. Moreover, changes in height pose a challenge to public facilities. For example, the height and seating of buses and public restrooms, the ceiling height of department stores, elevator specifications, and even the sizes of bed sheets and clothing need to be redesigned or modified.
Height Culture
For a time, there was a rather vulgar term in society for people below a certain height: “second-class disabled.” This term almost reached the level of discrimination, but the underlying cultural background is profound. A survey asked women about their ideal “perfect man,” including 30 criteria such as income, car, diet, clothing, and hygiene habits. Almost all respondents defined the “perfect man” as 1.83 meters tall, with other options chosen according to personal preference.
When people’s aesthetic standards for the body are overly biased towards height, this deviation often leads to absurd situations. It was reported that a restaurant in Haidian District, Beijing, once advertised for security guards, specifying a monthly salary of 800 yuan for those over 1.80 meters tall and 600 yuan for those under 1.80 meters. In this way, height and status were equated.
In January 2002, a nationally renowned lawsuit occurred. Jiang Tao, a law graduate from Sichuan University, was rejected for a government job due to his height. In an interview, Jiang Tao stated that although he was only 1.65 meters tall, he had excellent academic performance and met all other qualifications advertised. Upon hearing of his student’s plight, Associate Professor Zhou Weibao resolutely decided to act as Jiang Tao’s legal representative. In the administrative complaint presented by Professor Zhou, it was stated that the defendant’s specific administrative act of recruiting national civil servants infringed upon the plaintiff’s equal rights and political rights to serve as a state organ worker, restricting his eligibility to apply for public office. The plaintiff requested the court to declare the defendant’s discriminatory administrative act regarding height illegal and to order the defendant to publicly correct and cancel the height-discriminatory restriction on application.
Public opinion holds that it is necessary and essential to formulate physical requirements and standards tailored to the specific characteristics of different professions and future industries. The law allows for “special requirements for special positions,” as height directly impacts normal employment in fields such as military service, police work, and sports. However, height is not necessarily related to becoming a qualified bank employee. The bank’s decision to exclude Jiang Tao based on his height constitutes unreasonable differential treatment and thus discrimination.
When societal aesthetics regarding height become skewed, leading to a series of unreasonable phenomena, the law needs to step in to correct this imbalance. This should be considered an effective social balancing mechanism.
Value Ranking
In fact, people’s concern about height is sometimes not just about “charm index,” but also involves competition for other interests.
For example, there is a concept called “the politics of height,” which mentions a significant correlation between the height comparisons of politicians and election results in Western televised debates. Statistics show that in the 16 US presidential elections since World War II, the taller candidate won 11 times, while the shorter candidate won only 4 times. In the UK general election, Cameron’s re-election was even seen as conforming to the “Prime Minister’s Height Law”: in the past 40 years, no male Prime Minister in Britain has been shorter than 180 cm. This shows that sometimes, height is an advantage. A survey asking people about their satisfaction with their height found that nearly 70% wished they weren’t “the way they are now.”
However, while height has become more valuable, people may need to reconsider in the face of “fatal” health problems. After all, improved nutrition brings not only increased height but also a surge in obesity and various obesity-related diseases.
Currently, there are more and more obese people and children, and lifestyle diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent. Some intractable diseases and diseases of the elderly are showing a trend of affecting younger people—all due to overnutrition. Taking Beijing as an example, the obesity detection rate among primary and secondary school students in the 2013-2014 school year was 15.6%, an increase of 2.6% compared to the previous year. We are clearly unprepared for this trend. The “Nutrition Improvement Regulations” are still in the draft stage. However, some countries abroad have already made significant progress. Japan enacted the Nutritionist Law in 1947, resulting in Japanese people over 40 being shorter than Chinese people on average, while Japanese people under 40 are taller than Chinese people on average. In 2009, Japan even enacted legislation specifically targeting waist circumference, prohibiting men from exceeding 85 centimeters and women from exceeding 80 centimeters; regardless of rank, anyone exceeding this limit was required to resign.
There’s a saying online: “You can be short, but you can’t be both fat and short.” From the perspective of the nation and the government, the issue of national physical fitness should be given high priority, and support should be provided for national fitness.
