The Museum of Hoaxes
Height Linked to Suicide
Posted By:
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
Jul 26, 2005
 <b>Warning: Might be a tad morbid</b>

This came out of Sweden, like another link I put up recently - maybe there should be a study conducted about studies conducted by Swedish researchers. Winters getting too long, guys?

<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/13/health/webmd/main708912.shtml" title="Click Here">Height and Suicide Study</a>

An excerpt:
<i>Swedish researchers say short men may have a higher risk of suicide.

"We found a twofold higher risk of suicide in short men than tall men," they write in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Of course, short men can live healthy, rewarding lives with no suicidal designs. Tall men and those of average height can also commit suicide.

Researchers working on the study included Finn Rasmussen, MD, PhD. Rasmussen is an associate professor in the public health sciences department of Sweden's Karolinska Institute.</i>

It seems what they are saying is "men can commit suicide". Maybe it's just easier for a short guys feet to dangle in hanging incidents!
Category: Death; Replies: 29

Comments
Nettie
in Perth, Western Australia
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 07:54 AM
Did you also know that it's more common for short men to pee in the shower. Of course, tall men also can pee in the shower and short men can choose not to pee in the shower and middle height men can choose either way, depending on if they're having a short day or a tall day...
Rochelle
Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 08:31 AM
That article is written strangely. lol

However an explanation for the suicide rate could be that short men are discriminated against. They have a hard time with relationships because many women will not date someone shorter than themselves. They are often not taken seriously because they look more "cute" than "macho," which among other things makes them less likely to be promoted in their jobs. I can see this adding up to a high suicide rate.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 09:19 AM
I know a lot of men, too, who have the SGS (Short Guy Syndrome). They tend to bulk up at the gym, in order to appear larger. They are also generally assholes, b/c they think a big attitude will help with their height.

I would not date a man shorter than myself.
Boo
in The Land of the Haggii...
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 10:52 AM
Nor would I, Maeg, but then I'm a lot littler than you.
I note they said 5'9" was the average. So any man under that height would count as short. But I'd imagine that there's a huge difference in self-esteem (if you were the type of guy to care about that) between being five feet tall, and five feet and eight inches tall.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 02:41 PM
I know my dad always says, "almost 6ft", but he's actually 5' 10".
ED
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 07:18 PM
Hmm... Im 6'4" and don
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
 Member
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 | 08:50 PM
Except that they're too short to get their leg up and over the terrace railing!!!

:cheese:
Accipiter
Member
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 | 08:57 AM
The height of the men also might have nothing to do with the suicides. Any time you divide up people into two groups by some activity or characteristic, you'll find that the people in each group have many other characteristics in common with each other but different than the other group. Most of the men in one group might also put milk in their tea, while most of those in the other don't. That doesn't mean that it has any link to the subject of the study.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 | 11:40 AM
I bet short men use less milk.
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 | 08:10 AM
Aha! So that explains the high suicide rates in Japan!
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 | 08:11 AM
I wonder if college students are shorter than most people, too...
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 | 08:23 AM
Accipter, do you know the Latin phrase that means "after which, therefore because of?" I should know it, I studied Latin, but I don't.
Accipiter
Member
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 | 05:40 PM
Um. . .as far as I can tell (my Latin's a little rusty, too, so I may have gotten the declensions wrong), that would translate as "post quod, ergo propter" or "post quod, ergo ob".
D F Stuckey
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 | 10:50 PM
maegan et al, replace "short men" with "obese women" in all of your previous statements and repeat them.

Now, don't they sound rather derogatory? Not that I'm saying you meant to be rude, but it's just that you are showing social conditioning toward a particular bias. Surely, if a person was menatlly compatible, it wouldn't matter to a well-adjusted person waht size they were, would it?

But then, my bias is that I'm repulsive looking and 167.5cms tall.
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 | 05:46 AM
Maybe they should say "being inadequate linked to suicide."
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 | 02:49 PM
D F, *I* didn't make up the study. Someone else did. If it was derogatory - it's because someone else created it.

Yould could also replace "short men" with "blonde men" or "asian women" or "purple Vulcans".

But the study wasn't about any of those types of people. It was about their HEIGHT. Men's height in particular.
Rochelle
Member
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 | 06:29 PM
Maegan, I believe Stuckey was referring to the short jokes and probably also your assumption that those short men you know are assholes because they are short. I also found it derogatory.

I don't want to lecture, but I deal with short jokes and rude comments every day and it really aggravates me that it's still socially acceptable to make fun of short people.

I'm not making an attack against anyone, just pointing out that you're all being a little less than tactful.
Boo
in The Land of the Haggii...
 Member
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 | 06:56 PM
I have to agree (I'm biased, I know, because my husband is a smidge under 5'9", and so, by this study, short).
Echoing Rochelle here, in that I too don't mean to attack anyone, but it annoyed me too.
D F Stuckey
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 | 10:45 PM
Thank you, Rochelle,for picking up on what I was trying to say in my aggreviously clumsy manner. Though the study itslef is not derogatory, Maegan's follow-up comments were and I merely tried to bring that to "her" attention.

Perhaps Maegan is an imposter as to gender, as I cannot believe a woman would lack the wit, subltly and intellect to see the point I was making.
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2005 | 12:41 AM
D F Stuckey, you are a sexist prick.

That felt good. But I take it back.
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
 Member
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2005 | 12:46 AM
"Post hoc ergo propter hoc" was the actual phrase I found when I bothered to look it up. It's a line of reasoning we see a lot in the "believers" that come to the forum. I think I'll call it PHEPH for short.
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2005 | 06:42 AM
Hey, can I help it if all the short men I know ARE jerks?? I come from a family of tallish men - since they're my family, they're probably nicer to me than to the general public. For all I know they're Royal Jerks (wait, did I just insult royalty??). The SHORT men - and by short I mean about 5'6" and under, have ALWAYS been rude to me. Is it b/c I'm tall? Are they jealous, so they feel the need to try and belittle me and intimidate me with the broadness of their shoulders or the thickness of their arms??

I'm not heightist, I was making an observation. And obese women are not rude to me, and do not call me a bitch when they hit on me and I politely decline their invitations (well, come to think of it, I've never been hit on by an obese woman).

And I have plenty of people bother me about my height as well. How's the weather up there? You must be really good at basketball. And I'm not even that TALL. Most guys have been intimidated by my height, and instead of thinking of me as a real person, I'm just an Amazon.

So, I'm sure that everyone has had SOMETHING about them that the public belittles or makes fun of. I didn't mean to offend anyone on this site, and I'm sorry if my comments came out as such. (Well, only sorry that someone took offense, not sorry that I said it.)

I try not to take things terribly personally - and I like I said, I was making an observation of the men I KNOW. Most of these men are also military, does it mean that all of the military is short, or rude? No. It just means that short people seem to have had bad representation.
Fight or Flight
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 | 07:52 AM
megan:
I'm 5'8 and a male, I think the reason people are getting upset is because you did say "all short men are jerks" and that we try to overcompensate by hitting the gym?? As a short man I know what it's like to have women laugh at me, and get disrespected by other men. Short man syndrome? That's unfair, you get ridiculed and rejected because of a physical characteristic you can't change and then the first sign of frustration you display is turned into "Little man syndrome". Tall men that act like jerks are simply called "jerks". Short men are given a syndrome. The fact is short is considered a negative, which is why other negative's are linked to it.
The thing is, I can't change my height, and as a man I will always be judged heavily for it (like I did something wrong to cause my shortness??) so please don't add insult to injury by making such sweeping statements.
Observer
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 | 07:57 AM
Short men are useless and complete wastes of humanity. I'm 6'4 and I'm glad to hear short guys are offing themselves. It's a genetic flaw, like being ugly, or gay. We need to clean up the gene pool.

Megan: We should get together, pump out some tall (better) kids. =)
DFSTuckey
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 | 01:39 PM
As an addition to this, a report has come form China that many men and not a few women who work in China's new foreign trading companies are finding that, in order to get recognition and promotion, they need to be taller; So they are lining up for the femur-lengthening procedure sometimes used in the West on dwarfish children, or those with uneven legs.

Simplified, this involves cutting the femur bone, then attaching a scaffold of external braces that can be extended slowly to encourage the bone to grow a new section in the cut thus lengthening the bone and since the femur accounts for 60% of human height, the patient grows taller by up to 10cms. the procedure takes months of course, and is very expensive; However, like bust enhancement, people believe that it works to improve their image.

Oh, and as an aside; The genes controlling height in children are carried on the mother's side. A tall mother makes her children tall, but only if the male line carries no recessive short genes. And sadly, many visually purebred Aryans may have recessives. 😉
JohnnyBoy
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 | 03:19 PM
Why do people say stuff like that "all short men are jerks" seriously I know many short men who are not jerks my math teacher is only 5'6 and he's very nice guy and also very smart.My guitar teacher is 5'6 and he's a very nice guy, a professional at music and he's not even marriade.Then my sister are both with shorter than average guys, ones with a guy who's 5'5-ish, and the other guy is 5'8, and they're also some of the nicest guys you'd ever meet unlike the other guys they dated before who seemed to be assholes who all they wanted to do was use them and cheat on them and then I got a cousin who is with some dude who is over 40 years old and he's 6'1 and he's a complete jerk who talks smack all the time and drinks heavily and yells at her.So Meagan I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
JohnnyBoy
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 | 03:27 PM
Oh yeah and Fight Or Flight you're not even really short the average height for a man is 5'9 so you're just an inch below average, I find it rediculous ifmake people fun of you for being "short" I mean that doesn't even make much sense.Tell me something if you see a girl who is 5'5 (an inch above the average height for a woman which is 5'4) do you think she's "tall" answer:NO!, so how isn't that any different as to calling some guy who's an inch below average height "short"?
oyna
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 | 01:54 AM
you'll find that the people in each group have many other characteristics in common with each other but different than the other group
oyunlar
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 | 12:37 PM
I note they said 5'9" was the average. So any man under that height would count as short. But I'd imagine that there's a huge difference in self-esteem (if you were the type of guy to care about that) between being five feet tall, and five feet and eight inches tall.

Note: This thread is located in the Old Forum of the Museum of Hoaxes.