Tall Men Do Get The Girl – Brief Article
Amy Wilson
The belief that short men get short shrift in the dating world isn’t just a tall tale.
Scientists recently reviewed the medical records of 3,200 Polish men between the ages of 28 and 60 and discovered that bachelors tended to be one inch shorter than married men. Childless men were also an inch shorter than men with at least one child.
Short men can blame evolution for this injustice, says Robin Dunbar, Ph.D., professor of evolutionary psychology at England’s University of Liverpool. “Women do not select men for their height,” he notes. “Height is a guide for what women really focus on: genes, wealth and status.”
Indeed, prior research shows that tall men are more successful academically, socially and financially, so women who think tall is their type likely crave these other qualities.
There is hope for the vertically challenged: Recent improvements in diet are making everyone taller, says Dunbar, and bodies that are too tall will eventually become misaligned, leading women to seek shorter, more symmetrical men. Still, evolution is a slow process–so short men seeking justice may be in for a long wait.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Sussex Publishers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
