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[..]

I'd honestly suggest you just leave this forum, Bruce. Posting on here will just keep making you feel bad. You already said you can't do LL because of martial arts, so I don't think you have anything to gain by staying here and being constantly reminded of height topics. Look into therapy to help you accept yourself as you are. Once you do manage that, it'll be just a matter of time until other people who do, too, enter your life.

Posting here does no harm to me, we need to express our thoughts once in a while somewhere. Leaving this forum won't change the facts that my heavily flawed upbringing most likely harmed my height and that my current height will continue to break me inevitably like it always has.

First time I became aware of this was in 2009. I was 16.5 years old. The older I get, the clearer it gets how significant height is in my life and how it will hurt me in the long term.

No amount of therapy will be able to help me more than I could to myself. It mostly will just waste my time paying someone to tell me how to live my life. I already made lists of people who are shorter than their fathers, shorter guys who beat up bigger guys also people like Tom Cruise. It's as much help as I'm gonna get.

[myloginacct]

Actually, it's the opposite. The older you get, the less height matters. Not only for you, but for those around you.

I think if you just try to forget this topic a bit and just focus on improving yourself as a person, your life will get better. Or maybe you don't need to forget the topic, but be realistic about it and don't be so harsh on yourself. Everyone has their limits in life. Life is not fair. Some people are just born richer, better looking (eventually), more intelligent and have better, more caring parents than the rest of the population. Likewise, there's nothing that stops someone from being born to shxtty parents, looking terrible, having all sorts of chronic or otherwise terrible health conditions as well as a low IQ, and still having a terrible time at school, etc. At least LL is a thing in our current age. There's absolutely nothing people with low IQs can do to make their IQ significantly higher. There's nothing people who were born blind can do to make themselves see (as of yet). There's nothing people who were born with chronic, inherited genetic diseases can do to cure themselves. Put things into perspective. Try to see the positives you have going for you and other people will too. I'm sure you have them. Don't dwell on your shortcomings. Everyone has some. Some less than others.

[Bander72]

It's best to let him post and not respond. He is stuck in his head to keep posting the same thing over and over and only a psychiatrist can help him. Which none in the forum are.

[..]

Actually, it's the opposite. The older you get, the less height matters. Not only for you, but for those around you.

I think if you just try to forget this topic a bit and just focus on improving yourself as a person, your life will get better. Or maybe you don't need to forget the topic, but be realistic about it and don't be so harsh on yourself. Everyone has their limits in life. Life is not fair. Some people are just born richer, better looking (eventually), more intelligent and have better, more caring parents than the rest of the population. Likewise, there's nothing that stops someone from being born to shxtty parents, looking terrible, having all sorts of chronic or otherwise terrible health conditions as well as a low IQ, and still having a terrible time at school, etc. At least LL is a thing in our current age. There's absolutely nothing people with low IQs can do to make their IQ significantly higher. There's nothing people who were born blind can do to make themselves see (as of yet). There's nothing people who were born with chronic, inherited genetic diseases can do to cure themselves. Put things into perspective. Try to see the positives you have going for you and other people will too. I'm sure you have them. Don't dwell on your shortcomings. Everyone has some. Some less than others.

But the point stays man.

[myloginacct]

But the point stays man.

Man, my story is really similar to yours (as far as I know). I know how you feel.

Still, again... put things into perspective. What if you discovered you have cancer and only about 5 years left to live? Would you be spending them lamenting how much you could have been if you were taller......... and richer... and more diligent... and had better parents... and so forth?

Conquer your life. You still have plenty of time. You can be the best person you can be, even if you can't be someone else. 

[..]

Man, my story is really similar to yours (as far as I know). I know how you feel.

Still, again... put things into perspective. What if you discovered you have cancer and only about 5 years left to live? Would you be spending them lamenting how much you could have been if you were taller......... and richer... and more diligent... and had better parents... and so forth?

Conquer your life. You still have plenty of time. You can be the best person you can be, even if you can't be someone else.

You can work on your financial status and character but you could not work on your height.

I really appreciate your help but no one can change the situation.

Just because I'm lamenting over it doesn't mean I am not doing anything in my life, but the regret and guilt over my height will most likely stay with me for the rest of my life.

[myloginacct]

Would you not be happy living your physical potential to the fullest now while also saving money for LL later in life?

[..]

Would you not be happy living your physical potential to the fullest now while also saving money for LL later in life?

If I am still typing on this forum, it means I'm still living. But I probably will never do LL due to my passion for martial arts. Also if I ever do it, it would be in my 30s at best, I've lost more than 10 years.

[Zeo]

If I am still typing on this forum, it means I'm still living. But I probably will never do LL due to my passion for martial arts. Also if I ever do it, it would be in my 30s at best, I've lost more than 10 years.

THEN GET OFF THE FKCING FORUM AND GO PRACTICE MARTIAL ARTS.  honestly why are you still here. We all get it, you ruined your height because of your childhood. boo hoo poor you, you poor thing.

You are losing even more than 10 years every second you are in this forum.

Stop playing the victim, either solve your problems or get over it. Be a man and grow some balls, you sound like a teenage girl

[MrHandsome]

In my opinion you should get the surgery.

[onemorefoot]

Get the surgery man, you can practice martial arts at a low level but you can. Analize if you can reach a top level in martial arts un two or three years, if you cant, just get the surgery.

[MrHandsome]

Exactly that's what I would recommend as well.

[myloginacct]

I was reading some articles today and found this tidbit. I don't think anyone should extrapolate it out of an excerpt, but of course I felt like sharing it here:

A special feature of the human pattern is that between birth and puberty the legs grow relatively faster than other post-cranial body segments. For groups of children and youth, short stature due to relatively short legs (i.e., a high sitting height ratio) is generally a marker of an adverse environment.

From the perspective of developmental plasticity, leg length, both in terms of absolute size and relative to total stature, is an indicator of the quality of the environment for growth during infancy, childhood and the juvenile years of development.

The reason for this is the general principle that those body parts growing the fastest will be most affected by a shortage of nutrients, infection, parasites, physical or emotional trauma, and other adverse conditions. The cephalo-caudal principle of growth as applied to the human species means that the legs, especially the tibia, are growing faster relative to other body segments from birth to age 7 years. Relatively short LL in adolescents and adults, therefore, is likely to be due to adversity during infancy and childhood leading to competition between body segments, such as trunk versus limbs and between organs and limbs. In the simplest case, such competition may be for the limited nutrients available during growth [31,56,61]. More complex explanations for competition relate to aspects of the thrifty phenotype hypothesis [75,76], the intergenerational influences hypothesis [77,78], the fetal programming hypothesis [79], and the predictive adaptive response hypothesis [80,81]. Discussion of these hypotheses is beyond the scope of this review [see reference 31, and other articles in the same issue, for such discussion], but in essence each of these hypotheses predicts that the vital organs of the head, thorax, and abdomen of the body will be protected from adversity at the expense of the less vital tissues of the limbs.

Source.

(Mind you this seems to be about children and adolescents only, but it has ambiguous reading in some parts: "Relatively short LL in adolescents and adults".)



Also a few extra interesting excerpts for people interested in height, leg length, proportions and sitting height.

Height:

Discrete populations of living humans, however, present a diversity of body sizes and shapes. Mean stature for populations of adults varies from minimum values for the Efe Pygmies of Africa at 144.9 cm for men and 136.1 cm for women [43] to the maximum values for the Dutch of Europe at 184.0 cm for men and 170.6 cm for women [44].

Sitting Height and leg length:

The sitting height ratio (SHR) is a commonly used measure of body proportion. Measured stature minus sitting height may also be used to estimate leg length but this measure does not standardize for total height making it difficult to compare individuals with different statures. Mean SHR for populations of adults varies from minimum values, i.e., relatively longest legs, for Australian Aborigines (SHR = 47.3 for men and 48.1 for women) to the maximum SHR values, i.e., relatively shortest legs, for Guatemala Maya men and Peruvian women ( SHR = 54.6 and 55.8 ).

Proportions:

Although white and black adults in the United States have the same average stature, when education, income and other variables are controlled, the body proportions of the two groups are different. Krogman [58] found that for the same height, blacks living in Philadelphia, USA had shorter trunks and longer extremities than whites, especially the lower leg and forearm. Hamill et al. [59] found that this was also true for a national sample of black and white youths 12 to 17 years old, and it is the case for adults 20−49 years old measured for the NHANES III survey, 1988–1994 [9]. A genomic contribution to the body proportion differences between blacks and whites seems likely, as the blacks tend to have more sub-Sahara African genomic origins than the whites.

Few if any specific genes for human body proportions are known. In a statistical pedigree analysis of two human samples, Liv s et al. [60] estimate that between 40% and 75% of inter-individual variation in the body proportions they studied (adjusted for age and sxx) are attributable to “genetic effects”. These may be better described as familial effects because the authors analyzed families and also because they found significant common environmental effects for siblings as well as significant sxx by age interactions. The range of the sources of variation in the analysis makes it difficult to compute simple genetic variance.

[..]

I was reading some articles today and found this tidbit. I don't think anyone should extrapolate it out of an excerpt, but of course I felt like sharing it here:

Source.

(Mind you this seems to be about children and adolescents only, but it has ambiguous reading in some parts: "Relatively short LL in adolescents and adults".)



Also a few extra interesting excerpts for people interested in height, leg length, proportions and sitting height.

Height:

Sitting Height and leg length:

Proportions:

Interesting. So it's like an official confirmation of what we've been worrying.

[IwannaBeTaller]

Interesting. So it's like an official confirmation of what we've been worrying.

I hardly see a confirmation that growth can be massively stunted by normal upbringing in these text bits, tbh.

[..]

I hardly see a confirmation that growth can be massively stunted by normal upbringing in these text bits, tbh.

A confirmation that poor quality of environment such as shortage of nutrients, infection, parasites, physical or emotional trauma, and other adverse conditions can stunt one's growth which can be judged from the short leg lengths.

[myloginacct]

I hardly see a confirmation that growth can be massively stunted by normal upbringing in these text bits, tbh.

I looked up better papers and I'll go through them all during the next few days, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that growth is stunted by a bad childhood. A bad youth, specially a bad childhood, affects everything in your life, from future health and psychological conditions to the very shape and wiring of your brain. I agree it can't massively stunt one's growth to the level of Psychosocial Short Stature, but it probably does affect it a little bit, specially if stress levels remain elevated until 18.

[Auron]

How this topic is still debatable baffles me. Just take into account the story of 13 children held captive in California and you pretty much got your answer.

[..]

I looked up better papers and I'll go through them all during the next few days, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that growth is stunted by a bad childhood. A bad youth, specially a bad childhood, affects everything in your life, from future health and psychological conditions to the very shape and wiring of your brain. I agree it can't massively stunt one's growth to the level of Psychosocial Short Stature, but it probably does affect it a little bit, specially if stress levels remain elevated until 18.

What do you mean by "a little bit"?

Thank you for this article. Now I am more convinced that my upbringing has caused my short stature.

I think it's fking tragic that I am short due to the stress and lack of sleep caused by school and problems associated with it. I mean there is no reason for this. It's not like I grew up in a war situation or my parents were poor in which I didn't have any choice. By in fact, I DID have choice. But I chose to struggle and suffer.

How this topic is still debatable baffles me. Just take into account the story of 13 children held captive in California and you pretty much got your answer.

I'm not sure how it's relevant. The children are still growing by this time.

[Auron]

I'm not sure how it's relevant. The children are still growing by this time.

Wrong. Just so you know, 1 of them was 29 and was mistaken with/for a teenager. When the police got there they thought they were all under 18.

Also:

The seven adult children were being cared for at Corona Regional Medical Center, said CEO Mark Uffer. He described them as small and clearly malnourished. "It's hard to think of them as adults when you first see them because they're small."

I could go on with more quotations...

[..]

Wrong. Just so you know, 1 of them was 29 and was mistaken with/for a teenager. When the police got there they thought they were all under 18.

Also:

The seven adult children were being cared for at Corona Regional Medical Center, said CEO Mark Uffer. He described them as small and clearly malnourished. "It's hard to think of them as adults when you first see them because they're small."

I could go on with more quotations...

Ok you have my attention now.

[myloginacct]

How this topic is still debatable baffles me. Just take into account the story of 13 children held captive in California and you pretty much got your answer.

Most here were debating how nutrition and lifestyle can affect your own height when you were born into a relatively well-off family in the modern world. I don't think nutrition was a factor for anyone in this forum. Whereas for life, I'll continue in my reply to Bruce.

That a situation like that of the children in California will cause a much smaller height is certainly not debatable. They were kept captive, malnourished and routinely abused - many until adulthood.

What do you mean by "a little bit"?

I'm still examining the science, but I don't think anyone who didn't undergo massive trauma and stress until adulthood could have had a severely stunted growth. However, unlike people here were saying, it seems that yes, higher than average stress levels until adulthood could have influenced someone's height. A little bit. So it seems that is possible that people may have had lost height due to how their lives went, but it depends on a lot of factors. The higher than average stress levels would need to have continued from childhood into adulthood. Like with PSS, if a child is removed from the stressing environment, the child's growth will go back to normal, and this is also mentioned in the article I linked there.

In your case, I don't believe nutrition was a factor at all. I've seen that you mentioned your father as being 175cm/5'9 and your mother as being around 158cm/5'2, so I don't think your upbringing could have had severely stunted your growth. If your father was 6 feet/183cm and your mother was 5'9/175cm, then yes, I'd believe that a height of 167cm/5'6 could be described as severely stunted growth due to stress. Otherwise, I'd think the stress levels could only have affected it a bit.

[IwannaBeTaller]

I looked up better papers and I'll go through them all during the next few days, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that growth is stunted by a bad childhood. A bad youth, specially a bad childhood, affects everything in your life, from future health and psychological conditions to the very shape and wiring of your brain. I agree it can't massively stunt one's growth to the level of Psychosocial Short Stature, but it probably does affect it a little bit, specially if stress levels remain elevated until 18.

Yes, I agree. What I meant is that the papers don't confirm what some paranoid posters here have claimed, for example that one's growth can be stunted by 4 inches because they didn't eat breakfast or only slept 6 hours on some days during the week while being a teenager. That stuff they don't prove.

[Android]

Those kids in California are a rare exception. As myloginacct said, their lives were far from average. Even children in war zones are treated better.

Too much dwelling on the past, Bruce. What are we going to do, sue our parents and whoever made us upset as a child? We don't have a time machine either, it's too late for all of us no matter what the science says. Spend less time thinking negative thoughts, and instead think about the future, like your martial arts training.

[backrandom]

some people here are chronical complainers about things they can't do anything about

[..]

Yes, I agree. What I meant is that the papers don't confirm what some paranoid posters here have claimed, for example that one's growth can be stunted by 4 inches because they didn't eat breakfast or only slept 6 hours on some days during the week while being a teenager. That stuff they don't prove.

6 hours?

I wish I could sleep that much once a week. I slept 0-2hours on average from the age of 10.

I remember one occasion where I felt so grateful because I managed to get 4 hours a sleep the previous night.

Those kids in California are a rare exception. As myloginacct said, their lives were far from average. Even children in war zones are treated better.

Too much dwelling on the past, Bruce. What are we going to do, sue our parents and whoever made us upset as a child? We don't have a time machine either, it's too late for all of us no matter what the science says. Spend less time thinking negative thoughts, and instead think about the future, like your martial arts training.

So was mine.

[YourSpaceBoyfriend]

I wish I could sleep that much once a week. I slept 0-2hours on average from the age of 10.

I remember one occasion where I felt so grateful because I managed to get 4 hours a sleep the previous night.

What a bull  lmao

You wouldnt even function properly u dummy

[..]

What a bull  lmao

You wouldnt even function properly u dummy

Who said I did?

[Knik]

What a bull  lmao

You wouldnt even function properly u dummy

don't forget he is Batman

[Knik]

Yes, I agree. What I meant is that the papers don't confirm what some paranoid posters here have claimed, for example that one's growth can be stunted by 4 inches because they didn't eat breakfast or only slept 6 hours on some days during the week while being a teenager. That stuff they don't prove.

6 hours per night is absolutely normal. 8h is the ideal, but 6h is enough for many people.

[YourSpaceBoyfriend]

Who said I did?

I didn't mean being slightly sleepy lol

don't forget he is Batman

Idk if his stories and theories are more pathetic or entertaining