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The men paying to be taller Demand for limb-lengthening surgery is soaring

At 8'1", Sultan Kosen is the tallest man in the world (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

At 8'1", Sultan Kosen is the tallest man in the world (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)


February 27, 2024   6 mins

When Ryan* arrived in Istanbul he was 5’7” — but when he returned to the UK he was 5’10”. By having his legs surgically broken and then extended at the glacial rate of 1mm per day, he had achieved his target height. Immobilised in an Istanbul hotel room, Ryan existed in a post-surgical limbo for three months to allow a fissure of new bone to form a bridge over the gradually growing gap. His stay was punctuated by regular physical therapy sessions with 20 fellow patients in one of the hotel’s co-opted conference rooms. “Some of them were screaming in agony,” he recalls.

Ryan acknowledges that his decision to pay £25,000 for a surgery that was pioneered to help soldiers recover from battlefield injuries might seem irrational. Now in his late 20s, he worked extra shifts as a waiter and freelance writer to help finance the operation. “A normal person would think you were crazy,” he says. “But I was at breaking point. If you lived in my head for the last five years, you’d understand.”

Despite having an outwardly confident exterior, Ryan’s height-related insecurity began at around the age of 16 while he was still at college and started to notice that younger friends were outgrowing him. “I remember feeling significantly smaller than my classmates, as if I was underdeveloped. There was a sense that I didn’t matter as much as the others and that there was that something missing.”

Although he was never bullied, Ryan found the long-term cumulative effect of occasional height-related digs corrosive enough to lead from low self-esteem to anxiety and depression. “You realise that there’s something about you that’s outside the standard deviation of people that you’d meet — and then you realise you can’t do anything to fix it. It was definitely a contributing factor to a lot of the mental-health difficulties I had during my late teens and early 20s. It sort of consumes you.” Even close friends had little sense of the extent of his despair.

Ryan remembers reading that cosmetic limb-lengthening surgery had been pioneered in the United States. But at a prohibitive cost of around £125,000, it was too remote a prospect to ever entertain seriously. And then he became aware that, by outsourcing post-operative care and physical therapy to a non-clinical setting in hotels, providers in Turkey were offering several versions of the same procedure at more affordable rates.

At around £45,000, the most expensive package there replicates the higher-tech version of operation available in the States. By implanting an extendable nail in the bone cavity, and then using magnetic sensors to lengthen it by remote control, it does away with the need for a bulky metal external fixator while also speeding up recovery and reducing the likelihood of infection, nerve damage, blood clots or the possibility of the bones not properly fusing.

However, younger patients on more limited budgets like Ryan, tend to opt for the lower-tech Lengthening Over Nail (LON) method that costs between £25,000 and £33,000 Unfortunately, LON does requires require the bulky external fixator, which is wrapped around the leg externally and attached to the bone through the skin with pins, making scarring and infections more likely. What’s more, LON patients are required to lengthen their limbs themselves, by manually twisting a key in the metal fixator on four excruciating occasions throughout the day.

By the time Ryan was ready to outline what the LON procedure would entail to his girlfriend, he had sunk further into his depression. Although she was initially horrified at the idea, she came around when she realised that the risks of doing nothing outweighed those from the surgery itself. Therapy had been repeatedly tried and had failed to remove Ryan’s crippling insecurity.

“She could see that I was at breaking point and that I’d already made my mind up, so she supported me throughout the process,” he says. After undergoing surgery 18 months ago, Ryan remained in hospital for five days on a cocktail of strong painkillers, morphine, antibiotics and blood thinners before being transferred to the hotel.

Today, Ryan claims he was one of the lucky ones because he always found the pain manageable; he remembers mind-numbing boredom being the biggest challenge. Robert, also from the UK, is there now and has not been so fortunate. When I spoke to him, he was halfway through the three-month lengthening process and still in very obvious discomfort. On the rare occasions that the pain subsides, Robert, an IT developer in his late 30s, can work remotely. “The pain is constantly there so I’m using painkillers. It stops you from doing anything like reading or watching films, but I sometimes manage to do some work on the laptop.”

Relentlessly, every six hours without fail, Robert turns the key in the external fixator that lengthens the legs by 0.25 mm. Invariably, the pain intensifies 10 minutes later as the muscles, and nerves stretch to accommodate the adjustment. ‘’It’s a serious procedure and being trapped in a hotel with such limited movement is obviously a very unusual situation.”

When I ask him why he’s putting himself through this, Robert cites a lack of confidence and a general sense of never quite being able to live life to the full. “Being taller has always been at the back of my mind — a sort of secret wish. You do feel as if you’ve missed out on certain things. And of course women desire taller men compared to themselves.”

“Women desire taller men compared to themselves.”

By the time he returns to the UK in around six weeks, Robert is hoping for 8cm of growth (from 167cm to 175cm). While he still needs a wheelchair to get around, by then he should be able to manage on crutches — although a full recovery will probably take nine months. He has no plans to broadcast where he’s been, but if close friends expressly ask him where he’s been or notice the change in his appearance, he plans to confide in them if they promise to be discreet.

Back in Istanbul, Makbulijana Haruni, the patient welfare coordinator at the Iwannabetaller clinic, remains inundated with dozens of enquiries about limb-lengthening each week. She explains that most requests are rooted in the desire to project more confidence, power and status at work. “We see a lot of businessmen who say I’m in a senior position and need to lead teams of people but with this height I’m not able to do this,” she says. People believe that if they are taller, they will be heard more or more likely to be considered for promotions because they’re taken more seriously.”

As a patient welfare coordinator, Haruni comes as part of the package. The clinic has the capacity to operate on 80 patients each year and Haruni works with her team to screen out patients with body dysmorphia — a serious mental-health condition where sufferers obsess over flaws in their appearance. She acknowledges that patients with body dysmorphia can be treated more effectively by therapy and antidepressants; surgery would be futile. Patients have to pass a pre-surgical psychological assessment to be eligible for the operation.

However, according to Haruni, not all of their competitors are quite so scrupulous. You only have to type limb-lengthening surgery into a search engine to see the proliferation of the procedure with clinics popping up in health tourist hotspots Mexico, India and even Iran. It’s an entirely unregulated global market where orthopaedic surgeons promise simple surgical solutions to complex problems with far too much gusto and entrepreneurial flair.

“Around the world, orthopaedic surgeons have clearly realised that they can make a lot of money in this way,” Haruni says, before adding that the hype is clearly fuelling unrealistic expectations. She increasingly has to reason with patients demanding growth of more than 6-8cm from the procedure, even though that escalates the risks of potentially life-changing complications.

But what is driving such international demand? When the American sociologist Saul Feldman popularised the term “heightism” in the Seventies, he identified an insidious unconscious bias that’s hiding in plain sight. “American society is a society with a heightism premise: to be tall is to be good and to be short is to be stigmatised,” he wrote. And to combat the last socially acceptable form of discrimination, he called for a “sociology of stature”. Over the past half century, researchers have been amassing an imposing body of research, with international studies showing that being tall correlates not just with enhanced educational outcomes, social mobility, romantic success, and acquisition of leadership positions, but a better quality of life in general.

Elsewhere, anthropological studies across cultures consistently show that taller stature is linked to increased social status. Although the reason why is unclear, there is a lot of evidence to support the interpersonal dominance theory — that we’re more likely to defer to the judgement of taller people because they are more likely to win a physical confrontation. When, for instance, the journalist Malcolm Gladwell was researching how we unconsciously form erroneous first impressions for his book Blink, he found that 58% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were above 6 feet even though only 14% of men in the general population were that tall.

Does this mean that heightism is hardwired into our consciousness as an insidious prejudice? Taken in the aggregate, the evidence for the existence of the so-called “height premium” is certainly compelling, to the extent that limb-lengthening surgery starts to seem like the extreme end of the cosmetic-procedure continuum: how different is it to transhumanist endeavours such anti-ageing biotech or biohacking?

Viewed in this way, Turkey’s nascent limb-lengthening industry feels like an unnerving glimpse into that biomedical brave new world where status itself is a marketable commodity. A tummy tuck or nose job might give you confidence and change the way you feel about yourself, but it can’t re-engineer the invisible power dynamics in every room that have been crafted by millions of years of evolution in the way a “height transplant” can.

Eighteen months on from his surgery, and three inches taller, Ryan has transitioned from just below average height to just above, and is perhaps uniquely placed to comment on these new power dynamics. “I just feel that I’m a default person now with my own attributes who can no longer be as easily dismissed,” he says. “It forces people to engage with me for who I really am.”


Sean T. Smith is a journalist and author.

seansmithwrites

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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
7 months ago

Sounds absolutely horrific. He’s an adult, it’s his money, so he’s entitled to do whatever he wishes, but I can see all kinds of problems with this type of surgery.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
7 months ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

And never mind…. “It forces people to engage with me for who I really am.”
Which is not true in his case?

Chris Amies
Chris Amies
7 months ago

And is anyone addressing the unfair societal dynamics that lead young men to do this? They’re every bit as much victims of a ‘lookist’ and competitive society as are young women with anorexia.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago
Reply to  Chris Amies

Yes. It is a common topic in all the mainstream newspapers. Often in the weekend editions which select a picture of a pretty lady for the front page there will be a writer asking why their teenage son is obsessed with gym/skincare.

Chris Amies
Chris Amies
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Well, that’s an advance anyway. Better than the article about ten years ago that was railing at ‘sad young douchebags’ in the gym, without asking why young men with no real prospects were getting obsessed with body image.

Darwin K Godwin
Darwin K Godwin
7 months ago

I’m 5’6”. I became a paratrooper at 18, now I stand taller than 99% of the rest.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago

Yeah everywhere except in real life.

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

deleted

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Says the person writing snide comments from behind a pseudonym…

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

It’s actually muddier than that. “UnHerd Reader” becomes the screenname for all who neglect to choose one for themselves. There are multiple prolific commenters under that default label here. Unless they self-identify (as “Kimberley” once did) or reveal some consistent traits, it’s a chaotic muddle.
Yesterday, for the first time I’ve noticed, UnHerd Reader made a detailed reply to UnHerd Reader. Ridiculous!

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

“UnHerd Reader” does imply that it is a specific person. Maybe it should be rendered as “unherd reader”?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

What? This isn’t real life. This is the internet.
I prefer to use a generic name rather than a pseudonym because it means people have to assess the content of what I write rather than just identifying the name and ignoring or downvoting immediately. I can see though why people would prefer it to be labelled to save them having to think!

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Weak.
*Anonymity is not enough so you need randomization to receive a fair reading?

nikos goat
nikos goat
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

This (person) needs to learn to stand above the parapet. How about leg surgery?

Liam F
Liam F
7 months ago
Reply to  nikos goat

like it!

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

And what have you achieved that you can be proud of? Your great height? Well done!

William Shaw
William Shaw
7 months ago

Thank you for your service.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago

In your dreams

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
7 months ago

Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death talked about how a shift to televisual media was completely changing the political terms of reference for the worse. Public discourse is no longer based on words, but on images, and images are simply unable to adequately convey serious, intellectual content. Though the early internet was text based, its integration with the smart phone has accelerated the shift to a visual culture. We are almost constantly watching visual images that either are not real or are a highly distorted view of reality. As children we now spend more time looking at cartoonised and airbrushed images of people than we do ourselves and the unglossed people around us. How we learn what our species looks like has been altered by visual media. Consequently, what we aspire to look like has been changed by visual media.

At the same time, broad technological progress has satisfied our more basic Maslov needs. We have been increasingly freed in terms of both time and resources to focus on esteem and self-actualization. Self-esteem and self-actualisation stem from self-reflection and almost all of us are prone to self-reflection becoming self-criticism and worse. Such criticism is rarely limited to oneself, we also tend to then judge others if only to justify our own decisions. In many respects, Maslov’s triangle is a pyramid of increasing social judgement and snobbery. Combined with a highly visual media world of completely unrealistic ideals of normal, climbing Maslov’s triangle leads to more judgement, more criticism, less confidence, less satisfaction, and lower self-esteem.

Technological progress is not just a new mirror for narcissism and judgement, when coupled with general affluence it is also an enabler. Thanks also to technology, fewer of us are needed to produce the tangible goods we consume. Parkinson’s Law ensures work has expanded to fill the time available. That work is now the fulfilment of the desire of others for self-esteem and self-actualisation. Yes, people do seem to think they can buy from others the keys to “self”-esteem and “self”actualization – all thanks to canny entrepreneurialism and visual marketing. Armed with the latest technological advances in biomedical science, we can now physically change ourselves to look like the media we consume. For some this is just keeping up with the Jones’s, another display of wealth, while for others it is a manifestation of anxieties amplified by visual media.

So where does this lead? The sad truth is it is unstoppable. The body modifications will only get more extreme. Social expectation will sucker ever more people into buying surgery and drugs. Economic growth depends on ever more creative use of our time. This is already a large and highly lucrative industry and the biggest corporations are only just becoming alive to it. Government has been persuaded by the pharmaceutical companies to facilitate more of this.

I’m not religious, very far from it in fact, but Neil Postman made an interesting point about the Biblical ten commandments. In at number two, an ancient people (or God, take your pick) decided that this was a *very* important law: “thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under earth.” It is difficult to understand why they feared making pictures of the world (not just God) as much if not more than murder. From what experience did they decide this law was needed? Clearly these ancient people saw imagery, visual media, as a danger to society. Maybe we modern people have underestimated the power of visual media to distort and twist us against ourselves.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Engaging reflections and valid generalizations.
“So where does this lead? The sad truth is it is unstoppable”–not at the individual or small-group level. Perfect resistance or victorious opposition will remain aspirational, of course. But examine any recent or distant period of the past as closely as you can–pick your favorite(s)–and huge oppressive obstacles and widespread delusions grow more visible. It’s always an uphill battle against our lower natures and more-or-less mad but never quite sane social conditions. We can surrender to this reality, but yet resist, even largely overcome it. My evidence? I’ll get back you on that! Think outside the pyramid (I’m not saying you don’t).
I believe the taboo against graven images was, in part, connected to the level of idolatry that was rampant in ancient Near-East societies: actual, direct worship of icons and statues, etc. There is a related purification attempt in two of the name(s) ascribed to the Most High: “I AM THAT I AM” and “YHWH”. The second was never meant to be uttered, the sacred Tetragrammaton, though some Westerners have thrown around Jehovah and Yahweh–disrespectfully in my opinion. Best not to imagine we can encapsulate the Nameless One.
I don’t call myself religious either, but I do believe there are more things in the Cosmos and on Earth than are dreamt of in our science or philosophy. And I don’t dismiss the foundational and enduring works of the past. To narrow it down in (what I hope is) a relevant way: I hold high esteem, and a form of reverence, for certain books both of Hebrew and Christian scripture. We are surely more image-drunk than ever, but all it really takes to become mesmerized is a golden calf you fetishize and worship, or one’s own reflection in a stream.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Excellent analysis

Richard Geist
Richard Geist
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

I wonder if this focus on height is in fact a socially acceptable surrogate marker standing in for the actual comparison. Perhaps the real issue driving the tall man’s assumed dominance and preference as a sexual mate is actually p***s size. While there are wide variations both between individuals and ethnic groups, in general a taller man is more likely to have a larger phallus. I defy any male to deny that in the locker room it’s not men’s heights that are being surreptitiously viewed and compared.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
7 months ago
Reply to  Richard Geist

I’m waiting for proper height to become a basic human right, so the surgery will be subsidized by government.

Stevie K
Stevie K
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Massive uptick for referencing Neil Postman and his very early identification of the power of visual imagery, and the moving image in particular.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
7 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Guess what cultures relied exclusively on imagery? Prehistoric ones. Guess where we’re headed? “Prehistoric” tribalism.

R Wright
R Wright
7 months ago

While this prospect revolts me, when you go on dating apps and see countless women openly refusing to date men under 6ft it does give me sympathy for the men who suffer horrible insecurity over it.

Beauty standards issues for men are, in my view, worse than that of women. Women can lose weight. For a man to gain a few millimetres of height, this is the nightmare he’d need to put himself through.

David B
David B
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

Those women demanding 6’+ males will still be just as shallow once you’ve squandered your savings on cosmetic butchery.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

I am guessing that a man that works to increase his wealth is just as attractive. Look at all the short ‘uglies’ on Wall Street or the tech industry. They aren’t hurting for women. Best case in point is Jeff Bezos of Amazon – the shortest and perhaps ugliest frog in the pond, drops his wife of several decades and picks up the ‘b**b-bo-licious’ woman of his dreams. If he were just a simple accountant he would have never divorced in the first place.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

“.…Jeff Bezos of Amazon – the shortest and perhaps ugliest frog in the pond….”
That might be true, but Mark Zuckerberg has a worse haircut.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

There’s a simple solution. Don’t go on dating apps. If you do, what do you expect other than a totally superficial cattle market?

Liam F
Liam F
7 months ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

the old adage rings true -” There is no such thing as an ugly rich man.”

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

You gotta remember that (at least in the U.S.) younger women and men are much taller than they used to be. So I suppose there are those 6’ women who don’t want someone shorter since, yes, women generally prefer a fellow who is at least somewhat taller. That’s one reason I think men like ethnic-Asian women as they are generally smaller.

Rob N
Rob N
7 months ago

Crazy and weird but his, adult, décision.

However I wonder how his girlfriend will feel about him now.

Peter B
Peter B
7 months ago

Madness.
Presumably his legs will now look out of proportion to his body.
And what happens if any children he has revert to being “too short” ? Do they now feel inadequate where perhaps they might not if their father was his true height ? Does he pressure them to get the same treatment ?
Note that the cost of such treatment is of course more than the £25,000. It’s also the lost earnings. Plus who knows what future complications. Wouldn’t counselling or therapy be more effective and a lot cheaper ?

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
7 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

Without surgical intervention, ie my natural form, is all leg and short body. I have no waist and could never achieve an hour glass shape without rib removal. I accepted my form and got over it. Tbf it’s easier to do when you have a personality to fall back on.

2 plus 2 equals 4
2 plus 2 equals 4
7 months ago

The whole thing sounds awful but I don’t much care what adults do with their own time, money and bodies.
Some sort of longitudinal study on whether it did actually make them happier in the long run would be interesting though.

2 plus 2 equals 4
2 plus 2 equals 4
7 months ago

Incidentally, the caption on the photo of Sultan Kosen is incorrect. He was originally verified by Guinness World Records people at 8’1″ but subsequently re-measured by them with a verified height of just under 8’3″.
Honestly, much more of that sort of sloppy inaccuracy and it will start to resemble The Guardian round here. 🙂

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

He must have had a growth spurt.

Philip Stott
Philip Stott
7 months ago

We have all noticed how humans are getting taller – some of my 14 year old son’s friends are over 6′ tall.
Will there be an inter-generational arms race? I’ll get my coat.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago
Reply to  Philip Stott

It’s true! I have noticed the extreme heights of the men at my daughter’s wedding. In my day that was rare. I am 5’9” and had the largest collection of flat shoes a girl could have. That said, the key to greater height is nutrition. Families that have been fed well over time are taller. Milk & cheese helps. Dutch and Danish men are right up there.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
7 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

If dairy is the key, are we going to see an increase in short people with the proliferation of veganism? Good grief! vegans with little man syndrome!
It does help explain my 6ft4 son. He loves milk and cheese! I would add, however, that buying trousers to fit a slim build, incredibly tall young man, who is all leg, isn’t without its challenges.

Dennis Roberts
Dennis Roberts
7 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

Was in Holland last year and the cheese museum made it quite ckear that they thought it was the amount of cheese they ate that made them big.

Chris Amies
Chris Amies
7 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

Although there is a genetic component – Montenegrins are taller than the Dutch but people from that area (the Dinaric Alps) always have been.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
7 months ago

I think Mary’s article is the answer to this article.
A) get out of your own head
B) get over yourself

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
7 months ago

From breast implants to bottom colllagen injection, without forgetting jaw “rebuilding”, there are lot of invasive surgery procedures for females desiiring to improve their looks.
This is a male variant, and the the reality is that some men will rationally elect to pay this price for that perceived body improvement.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
7 months ago

There are also plenty of grifters willing to relieve the insecure of their money. I can’t help feel that the young man’s new found confidence is more about him trying to convince himself that he hasn’t just wasted money and time on this endeavour.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
7 months ago

Terrifying article-I experienced an intense growth spurt in puberty when I went from just over 5! to 6.3″ in about a year-and it was painful.I recall being quite scared as I morphed into this gangly, uncoordinated adolescent and spent a long time trying to appear smaller (back in the eraly 1970’s being >6! was not the norm-particularly in mining communities when all the men appeared stunted) and always wore shoes without heels.I gradually adjusted to it and realised ,like whatever else my maker had decided to chuck in the pot for me,that it was ok.What a tragedy for these men.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
7 months ago

As a 5’8” bloke, I’m struggling to feel your pain.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago

First off, I confess I am not tall. Phew–that was cathartic. At 5′ 8″ (global male average y’all!) I’m not really short for a white guy of my generation either (born in ’71).
Yet I’m really grateful for every eight of an inch I do have under my hairless scalp. Even when I had hair and a young face, plenty of women pre-emptively dismissed me for not being taller–among other reasons, to be fair–but I can only imagine, and have glimpsed from above, what it’s like for a man 5′ 4″ or shorter. I suppose such a fella can tell his sob story to the man with no legs–but it is still a major dating-pool and mate-for-life handicap.
Why do you think Paul Simon (peaked at 5′ 3″) became so good at songwriting? Interesting article linked below*, if not a deep (tall?) dive. Here’s one quote:

Eventually, when he was in his 40s, Simon said to himself: ‘Listen man, if you’re going to make a big issue out of what you don’t have, you’re taking your actual gifts for granted….that’s the hand I’ve been dealt with. That’s the way I’m going to play it’.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5675139/Paul-Simon-admits-short-5-foot-three-height-eclipsed-success.html
*Forgot to link it at first

Dennis Roberts
Dennis Roberts
7 months ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

I’m similar height and age to you, so supposedly about average height. Yet when I’m in a meeting at work and look around at the other men I’m definitely below average in height. Constantly looking up at others must affect how you see yourself and how others see you. It’s clearly a real effect and yet is barely discussed (though I think just about everyone is at least subconciously aware if it).

I read somewhere that there was a study done in VR that changed people’s height so yhat tall people were made small etc. The tall people absolutely hated being small, to the point of saying that they thought avatars must use a person’s real height.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Dennis Roberts

We’re definitely below average. But only by a little–less than a standard deviation. Orange ya glad we’re not 5′ 4″?
I met a 5′ 2.5″ guy–you better believe he mentioned the half inch!–that was strong for his size and had a handsome face, but with an understandable complex I can’t really relate to at my middling elevation. However, I sure hated it when my not-by-blood uncle, himself about 6-foot-1, referred to me as a “little guy” when I was nineteen. I even had big muscles (I’m not slight of build) and could have probably kicked his ass! Glad I got over that slight decades ago.

Dennis Roberts
Dennis Roberts
7 months ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

I’m definitely glad to not be smaller. However, I am fairly slight, August-born (so youngest in my year) and a late developer as well. So I was always amongst the very smallest boys as I grew up. It was less of an issue once I was an adult but I’d still consider myself small just because that is how I was as a child.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Dennis Roberts

I’m sure some “big fellas” can’t imagine what it’s like for us “little guys”, nor some of our less-empathetic women. Ah well, at least we both talks and writes pretty good.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
7 months ago
Reply to  Dennis Roberts

My male Chihuahua mix sure doesn’t seem to feel that way. I guess he just doesn’t get it.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

I’m not tall (5’10” in my youth, maybe slightly less now that I’m in my 60s), but I have a full head of hair. I find that if I let it become sufficiently bouffant, it adds another inch…

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Awesome! Just what a bald guy needed to read right now. Nah, congrats on that…and let me remind you that I’m a mere lad of 52.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

My husband is 5’11” which I consider perfect height for a man and has a full head of silver wavy hair. And he couldn’t care less how he looks.

Kirk Susong
Kirk Susong
7 months ago

These men are suffering from something much worse than being short. Ultimately theological problems will require theological solutions.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Kirk Susong

Do you have favorites names that would help form a Panel Of Theologians to fix us?

D Glover
D Glover
7 months ago
Reply to  Kirk Susong

This hypothesis is promising, as it is experimentally verifiable. Get a cohort of short men and divide them into experimental and control groups.
The experimental group pray every day to grow taller and the controls don’t.
Measure height gain after a year.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  D Glover

Fund this research!

Brian Lemon
Brian Lemon
7 months ago

This is nuts. I’m 5’5″ and now retired, but had a very successful career that was helped by the fact I was consistently underestimated because I was short. These men need to accept who they are and turn it to their advantage.

Timothy Baker
Timothy Baker
7 months ago

I was once 5’ 4”. but with age have shrunk an inch. Quite honesty it has never bothered me. I once dated a six footer girl. The only time I was ever embarrassed was in a branch of W H Smith when she ostentatiously got a magazine from the top shelf and handed it to me. It was a joke. I only once went out a with a girl shorter than me, height had nothing to do with it, we just liked each other. When I met my wife she once asked me would I prefer her to wear flat shoes. I told her it was not an issue.
Career wise, height was never an issue. Firms hired me for my abilities. Until I read this article it had never occurred to me that anybody would want an operation to be taller. I would tell you a story about my p***s, but it’s too long.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
7 months ago
Reply to  Timothy Baker

“I could show you my backside in my concluding sentence, but that would be too cheeky”
Thumbs up, big fella.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Timothy Baker

That is all well and good, but did you ever run for President of the US?

David Walters
David Walters
7 months ago

The world becomes madder and sicker by the day. When they realise that gaining a few extra inches in height hasn’t achieved the happiness and success they crave what then….

nikos goat
nikos goat
7 months ago

I’m 5’8″ and have never, once, been concerned about my shortness. More a mental health and its ensuing crisis I fear

Arthur King
Arthur King
7 months ago

This is totally understandable. Masses of men suffer and die at risky jobs in order to be desirable enough to attract a woman to marry. Our whole society fails without these men who do awful jobs out of love for their wives. I’m in a high stress job that is killing me. I keep doing it ensure my wife has security in her old age.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago

This reminds me of the transgender controversy. If you hate your own body so much that you want to undergo an extremely risky, extremely painful, and extremely expensive procedure that is irreversible, you obviously have a serious underlying mental health issue. And where is the research on the long-term effects of limb-lengthening? What if it leads to osteoporosis or bone cancer or cardiovascular issues going forward, not to mention opioid addiction from lingering pain?
And what if becoming taller by this procedure makes people feel inadequate in other ways? Perhaps someone with short arms will feel like a T-Rex after gaining 3 inches in height and then will want to have his arms lengthened by the same procedure? And what about the proportionality of other body parts? Some transgender women have multiple surgeries after the main one (to make a jaw less square or reduce the Adam’s apple, for example). I can envision the same demand for multiple follow-up surgeries after undergoing limb-lengthening.
Also similar to the transgender issue is the risk of limb-lengthening being recommended for minors who are unhappy about their height. Many children want to be taller, and many parents want their children to be taller. Growth hormone is already available for young children who truly have a growth hormone deficiency as determined by an endocrinologist. But limb-lengthening looks like it might appeal to some parents of children who are under average height but don’t qualify for growth hormone.
It is shameful that the medical profession has found another way to profit from people’s psychological distress.

Phil Mac
Phil Mac
7 months ago

What a bunch of losers. No different from the women who have their lips filled, their butts lifted, or whatever else they’re all up to.
The problem is one of self-esteem, not legs or boobs.

Nancy Kmaxim
Nancy Kmaxim
7 months ago

Just think of all the life enhancing things that could be done with £25,000 and months of recovery time, not to mention avoiding the inherent risks of major surgery. I’m with Brian Lemon and Paul Simon.

JP Martin
JP Martin
7 months ago

Clearly we need a body positivity movement for shorter men. Or perhaps we can all just start self-identifying as our preferred height?

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
7 months ago

The bigger they are…the harder they fall.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Does Ron DeSantis know about this?