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We have written a market analysis for potential investors. In this market analysis we discuss the so called "cosmetic indication" and heightism. Here is the relevant part of our market analysis:
3.1. Cosmetic indication:
The beauty industry market is considered to be one of the biggest and fastest growing markets worldwide. According to the “Economist” the worldwide market was 160 billion dollars in 2003 with an annual growth rate of up to 7% a year, more than twice the rate of the developed world's GDP (
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1795852 ). One of the fastest growing segments is cosmetic surgery, already a 20 billion dollar business. The number of cosmetic procedures have increased in America by over 220% since 1997. The fastest growth can be seen with minimally invasive procedures, like e.g. Botox injections with a growth rate of more than 2400% since 1997.
Height distribution:
Adult height for one sex in a particular ethnic group follows more or less a Gaussian distribution (bell curve):
[... I couldn´t copy the picture with the bell curve for this posting ...]
That means: 68% of the observations fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean.
“Out of one hundred men, about 2/3 of them, about 68 %, are between 5'6" and 5'11". About 2/3 of all American men are 5'9" ± 3". About 1/3 of them are outside this range, with about half of those on each side. So, about 1/6 are 6' or taller, and about 1/6 are 5'5" or shorter” (
http://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html ). So about 16 % of the population are significantly shorter than the average (that means 3 inches shorter or more). So about 500 million men worldwide can be considered short statured.
Example USA: There are just about 100,000,000 adult men in America. Their average height is 5'9" and the standard deviation is 3". So we can predict how many of these men fall into various height categories (
http://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html ):
[... I couldn´t copy the picture with the height categories for this posting ...]
Short stature often has significant social and psychological consequences:
Several academic studies have proven, that short statured men have fewer opportunities for romantic relationships, have fewer children and on average are paid less. Height hierarchies are established early and persist for a long time. In an excellent article from 1995 the respected newsmagazine “The Economist” cites several academic studies:
“Tall boys are deferred to and seen as mature, short ones ridiculed and seen as childlike. Tall men are seen as natural “leaders”; short ones are called “pushy”. “If a short man is normally assertive, then he's seen as having Napoleonic tendencies”, says David Weeks, a clinical psychologist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital. “If he is introverted and mildly submissive, then he's seen as a wimp.” ... Turn, for example, to the work of two American psychologists, Leslie Martel and Henry Biller, whose book 'Stature and Stigma' (DC Heath, 1987) is especially useful. Mr Martel and Mr Biller asked several hundred university students to rate the qualities of men of varying heights, on 17 different criteria. Both men and women, whether short or tall, thought that short men - heights between 5´2´´ and 5´5´´ - were less mature, less positive, less secure, less masculine; less successful, less capable, less confident, less outgoing; more inhibited, more timid, more passive; and so on. Other studies confirm that short men are judged, and even judge themselves, negatively. Several surveys have found that short men feel less comfortable in social settings and are less happy with their bodies. Dustin Hoffman, that 5´6´´ actor, is said to have spent years in therapy over his small stature.
The western ideal for men appears to be about 6 ´2´´ (and is slowly rising, as average heights increase). Above that height, the advantages of extra inches peter out, though very tall men do not, apart from hitting their heads, suffer significant disadvantages. And medium-sized men do fine (though they typically will say they would like to be taller, just as women always want to be thinner). The men who suffer are those who are noticeably short: say, 5´5´´ and below. In a man's world, they do not impress. Indeed, the connection between height and status is embedded in the very language. Respected men have 'stature' and are 'looked up to': quite literally, as it turns out.
One of the most elegant height experiments was reported in 1968 by an Australian psychologist, Paul Wilson. He introduced the same unfamiliar man to five groups of students, varying only the status attributed to the stranger. In one class, the newcomer was said to be a student, in another a lecturer, right up to being a professor from Cambridge University. Once the visitor had left the room, each group was asked to estimate the man's height, along with that of the instructor. The results are plotted in the chart above. Not only was the 'professor' thought to be more than two inches taller than the 'student'; the height estimates rose in proportion to his perceived status.” (
http://www.shortsupport.org/News/economist_heightism.html )
Additionally height discrimination seems to be a universal constant:
“In Chinese surveys, young women always rate stature high among qualifications for a future mate. Indeed, the prejudice appears to be universal.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas Gregor, an anthropologist at America's Vanderbilt University, lived among the Mehinaku, a tropical forest people of central Brazil who were amazed by such new-fangled gadgets as spectacles. … By many measures - wealth, chieftainship, frequency of participation in rituals - tall men dominate in tribal life. They hog the reproductive opportunities, too. Mr Gregor looked at the number of girlfriends of Mehinaku men of varying heights. He found a pattern: the taller the man, the more girlfriends he had. As he explained, 'the three tallest men had as many affairs as the seven shortest men, even though their average estimated ages were identical.'
He went on to note that the Trobriand Islanders of the Pacific, the Timbira of Brazil, and the Navajo of America were among the many other traditional cultures that also prize male height. 'In no case have I found a preference for short men,' he said. Among anthropologists, it is a truism that in traditional societies the 'big man' actually is big, not just socially but physically.
It is not hard to guess why human beings tend instinctively to defer to height. Humans evolved in an environment where size and strength - and good health, to which they are closely related - mattered, especially for men. Indeed, they still matter, albeit less than they did. Other things being equal, large males are more to be feared and longer-living; an impulse to defer to them, or to prefer them as mates, thus makes good evolutionary sense. Perhaps the impulse is softened in a modern industrial society. But how much? Consider six aspects of a supposedly advanced culture.
Politics. In all but three American presidential elections this century, the taller man has won. By itself this might be a coincidence. And of course some short politicians thrive (examples include France's Francois Mitterrand and Britain's Harold Wilson). But the pattern is still clear, and is also found in:
Business. A survey in 1980 found that more than half the chief executives of America's Fortune 500 companies stood six feet tall or more. As a class, these wekepei were a good 2 inches taller than average; only 3% were peritsi, 5´7´´ or less. Other surveys suggest that about 90% of chief executives are of above-average height. Similarly for:
Professional status. Looking at several professions, one study found that people in high-ranking jobs 'were about two inches taller than those down below, a pattern that held even when comparing men of like educational and socioeconomic status. Senior civil servants in Britain, for instance, tend to be taller than junior ones. Shorter people also have worse:
Jobs. Give job recruiters two invented resumes that have been carefully matched except for the candidates' height, as one study did in 1969. Fully 72% of the time, the taller man is 'hired'. And when they are hired, they tend also to earn rather more:
Money. In 1994 James Sargent and David Blanchflower, of America's Dartmouth College, analyzed a sample of about 6,000 male Britons whose progress was monitored from birth to early adulthood. Short teenaged boys made less money when they became young adults (aged 23) than their taller peers - even after other attributes, such as scores on ability tests or parents' social status, were factored out. For every four inches of height in adolescence, earnings went up more than 2% in early adulthood. Another survey, of graduates of the University of Pittsburgh, found that those who were 62' or taller received starting salaries 12% higher than those under six feet.
Not only do tall people grow richer, rich people grow taller. They enjoy well-nourished childhoods and better health. The stature-success nexus further bolsters the social preference for height. And that preference is expressed in a coin that is even more precious than money, namely:
Sex. Mating opportunities are, at least in evolutionary terms, the ultimate prize of status. And here is the final humiliation for short men. When 100 women were asked to evaluate photographs of men whom they believed to be either tall, average or short, all of them found the tall and medium specimens 'significantly more attractive' than the short ones. In another study, only two of 79 women said they would go on a date with a man shorter than themselves (the rest, on average, wanted to date a man at least 1.7 inches taller). 'The universally acknowledged cardinal rule of dating and mate selection is that the male will be significantly taller than his female partner,' write Mr Martel and Mr Biller. 'This rule is almost inviolable.' For short men, the sexual pickings are therefore likely to be slim” (
http://www.shortsupport.org/News/economist_heightism.html ).
Much more information and studies concerning additional aspects of height discrimination can be found e.g. at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heightism For most people a harmonic relationship and a satisfying job are the most important factors for self esteem and happiness in life. And these two aspects are severly influenced by height aspects. So a higly significant correlation between psychological problems (like e.g. depression and suicidal tendencies) and short stature could be found (
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/7/1373). Taken together these study results prove, that height is one of the most important factors (perhaps even the most important factor) concerning male attractivity. So surely a lot of short statured men would use a safe and effective height increase therapy. Also a lot of medium-sized men would surely use this therapy, as many of them typically say, that they would like to be taller. Most probably also a lot of women would use a safe and effective height increase therapy, as long legs are considered to be the female beauty ideal.
As height discrimination is a worldwide problem, there would be a worldwide market - not only in the USA and Europe, but especially also in Asian countries, where people tend to be shorter (please see e.g. this Time-Asia-article about the boom of limb lengthening surgery in China
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,187654,00.html ). This article also emphasizes, that there are (unfair) height requirements for several jobs in China: “In a country that has hundreds of qualified applicants for every job, height minimums are one way to whittle down the competition. "You don't have to be tall to be good at computers," says Ma Xiang, a recruiter for a consortium of online companies in Beijing, which requires that female applicants be at least 1.60 m tall (the average height of Chinese women). "But it's one of the ways we can limit the number of [applications] we get."
It has to be added, that official height requirements for special jobs (e.g. policeman/policewoman, fireman, pilot) are also existing in the USA and in European countries.
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Topic: (Bio-)medical height increase research projects (Read 9417 times)