Category: Anthropometry

SitzZwerg

September 28, 2023 By arne hendriks Off

In the Appendix to the online dictionary Wictionary is a section called “Terms considered difficult or impossible to translate into English”. One word that caught our attention is ‘Sitzzwerg’. The German word Sitzen means to sit, and Zwerg means dwarf. Thus a Sitzzwerg is a…

Aligning the Loops

February 19, 2023 By arne hendriks Off

A study published in the journal Biology Letters finds that the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of being a specific height are unevenly distributed between the sexes. For women looking to pass on their genes it is better to be short as this is considered to…

Thumbs Up for Teens.

March 15, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

We don’t yet know why but it seems younger mothers have shorter baby’s. A recent study in New Zealand assessed whether increasing maternal age would be associated with changes in height, body composition, as well as lipid and metabolic profiles in childhood. The age of women…

The Turkish Seat

April 20, 2015 By arne hendriks 0

The Turkish Seat, also known as the Sella Turcica, forms a bony throne for one of the most important protagonists in our ambitious desire for a smaller human species: the pituitary gland. It is here within the deepest part of the cavity (called the hypophysial fossa) above…

2000+ Genetic Factors

December 9, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

Since 2007 researchers of the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium are quickly uncovering the polygenic traits that influence human height.  Recently they analysed data from the genomes of another 253,288 subjects and were able to identify 697 gene variants, the pieces of DNA that…

It’s Not (All) About Genes

August 2, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

There is a strong correspondance between the heights of offspring and the average height of the two parents. In Western societies this amounts to height being up to 90% heritable. But although who your parents are is the predominant determination of height, it’s no excuse for…

Ituri Zebras (Mbuti)

May 12, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

At an adult height of only 135-140 centimeters the Mbuti of Congo are about 25 to 30% shorter than an average person and among the shortest people alive today. Their average weight of only 40 kg constitutes a significantly more intelligent and efficient body design, needing…

Short Hearts

April 9, 2013 By arne hendriks Off

Despite what many of us think, tall stature is not synonymous with health. Although anthropometric historians like Robert Fogel and John Komlos stress that the reasons why we are so tall are the result of better health, this doesn’t mean that being tall itself is…

Growth Deceleration

November 11, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Adult size isn’t just determined by how fast we grow. It depends also, and perhaps foremost, on how and when this growth stops. Somatic growth results from both cell proliferation (hyperplasia) and cell enlargement (hypertrophy). In mammals, somatic growth is rapid in embryonic and early postnatal…

Supercentenarians

September 16, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

There’s an undisputable relationship between longevity and height. Short people live longer. Accordingly, most supercentenarians (people of 110 years and older)  are relatively small, and not because they shrink with age. Here are some heights versus age at death of prominent supercentenarians. 1.Jeanne Calment 149,9…

Hhp (Human Height Print)

December 5, 2011 By arne hendriks 2

Tall people need more resources than short people. That’s why it’s rather alarming that the human species continues to grow taller. In fact our increasing height puts more pressure on the ecosystem services than the total population growth. If people become 20% taller this creates over…

Plus Size Camouflage

March 30, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

One of the more complicated issues in shrinking the human species is how to deal with generational size differences. New generations will be smaller than older generations. Heleen Klopper, a designer especially interested in textiles, speculates on a future fashion and make-up of camouflaging the large as…

The Stats on T.I.S.M.

January 8, 2011 By arne hendriks 5

Our projected height for The Incredible Shrinking Man is 50 centimeters. With that height, and the same proportions its weight will be around 1,7 kg. But how does that translate to a shoe or ring size? And what about the volume of our brains and…

7 Billion

January 1, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

In 2011 the world population will reach 7 billion.  To put this into perspective; around 8000 BC at the dawn of agriculture, the Earth’s population was only 5 million. At the beginning of our calendar (0 AD) this had increased to around 200 million. During the Industrial…

Transport Retrofit

July 18, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

Airlines have tried to compensate the increase in passenger size and weight by adding extra taxes and designing larger and more fuel efficient airplanes but surely there are limits to how big our vehicles can become. Shrinking on the other hand would open up a…

Dwarf Worship

June 27, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

At the end of the 19th century R.G. Haliburton ‘hunted’ for a secret dwarf tribe he believed to live somewhere in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. It aroused quite some interest as this article in The New York Times dated 27 september 1891 shows. The…

20% = 73%

June 23, 2010 By arne hendriks 8

The Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes found that when a body increases in dimensions and retains its geometric similarity, its volume and weight increase much faster. This means that an increase in human heigth of 20% equals an average increase in body mass of 73%…

Outsourcing Brain Capacity

May 22, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

“But what do we do with the brain?”, was the first question a neighbor asked when he heard of the ambitions of The Incredible Shrinking Man to shrink the human species to 50 centimeters. It’s a good question.  Although not proven beyond a doubt, there…

History of Height

May 11, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Anthropometric history explains trends, cycles, and patterns caused by changes in the social, economic and epidemiological environment. In times of hardship people tend to grow smaller. But the reason for this is maybe not as straight forward as it may seem. A smaller person is more…