To measure is one of our main daily activities and importance that the verdict of the scale dresses for some parents, sometimes has donation to irritate us.

Size: Dimension of a living being or dun object, height, stature, format. Size is a complex feature the h ritabilit of which is very high.
However, the identification of genes controlling this feature is still debutante.
A very weak proportion of very small patients are bearing of mutations g niques identified, leaving the vast majority without molecular explanation.
Similarly, genes implicated in the variations of size on the scale of populations remain to identify.
What advantages are given to the men by their size? Size is not therefore a simple biological variable.
It is sociological data, all the more notable as it is visible and even objective.
The countries where medium size is the highest are Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Holland.
In France, since the end of the XIXth century, the medium size at the age grown-up advances, and sharpens her of men quicklier than that of women: calculated at 20-year-old adults, the mean deviation of the size of 2 sexes was 9,7 cm in 1970, 11 cm in 1980 and 12,1 cm in 2001, principally favour the improvement of living conditions and of health conditions.

Are statements of size valid?

L sociological analysis of the size of the individuals makes intercede 2 types to measures  of size: measure by a scale, and/or cross-examination of the individuals. If data  of scale are compared   and sizes brought back by the individuals, they notice that a third of the men makes itself look taller in the 2 cm cross-examination, by by rounded off  from above (165 for 163 cm for example). This phenomenon exists to 15 % women.

Size, nuptial life and fertility

The large men have more many derivation. An English study published in Nature in 2000 showed that the men with the biggest number of children are 5,5 cm more than the medium size of the men of cohort. The number of partners in the course of life is also corr l in the size of the men: the tall men> 185 cm divorced and remarried twice more than the men of less than 165 cm (Study accomplished on Офисrs of West Point in 2001). This is not true for the women: the small women are not less in couple than those of the medium size, but the very big women yes! This would be linked to the more precocious puberty of the baby women, fecund earlier.
If the small men have fewer children, it is also because they live in couple later that the big. The analysis by the French national institute of statistics and economic studies in France in 2001 confirms that, to 20-29 years, 50 % of men of more than 180 cm live in couple, vs 170-180 cm 40 % and less than 30 % men of less than 170 cm. This difference becomes blurred in the period of age following (30-39 years), with percentages attaining respectively 76 % and 74 %, but not for the persons at least d 1,70 m, since they are only 60 % to be lived in couple.

Is it because these men sound babies that they do not find spouse? Or rather because size is lived as the sign of a more modest social origin? Or else, because the women one a "natural" attraction  for the big? If young 15-20-year-old adults (med on 1984) about the physical portrait of the ideal spouse are questioned: 7 % men wish a small woman, 16 % a "medium" woman  but the half of the women mention big size as main characteristics of the dreamt spouse 70 % women refuse the idea of forming a couple with a smaller man than them, while 47 % men do not dream about a bigger woman, but would accept it. Motives given by those and those who would "refuse" a smaller spouse are the fear of ridicule, the fright of psychological problems (complexes), or the desire to be dominated! These data are found in Europe but also in Asia, where the size of the future spouse is one of the first brought back criteria.

What is this force which, in sexual attraction, pushes the women to approve the big by a large majority? The big size of the men, in progressive sense, is received as a sign of the quality of genes the individual of which is bearing. There is a social norm of the "physically well matched" couple  in whom, the man is bigger than the woman. In France, the men in couple are on average bigger than their 12 cm companion (analysis of 2 500 couples in France in 2001). The men measuring more than 185 cm are big often much more than their companion (at least 21 cm), while 15 % small men is smaller than their spouse.

Size and jealousy

Dutch and Spanish researchers asked 549 men and women to estimate their jealousy. Results: the degree of jealousy goes hand in hand with size. The small men are the most jealous. The tall men they would not fall in this type of feeling because size goes hand in hand with attraction, power, and loving success, conclude the researchers. At the women, there is also a report between size and degree of jealousy. But it is not the big women who prove to be the least jealous but the women of medium size. Other study lighting our loving behaviours: we would be more attracted by the individuals to the long legs. A conclusion got by Polish researchers who recruited 218 men and women they showed to whom individuals' photos the size of legs of which had been changed by computer. The men and the women in the short legs are considered not very attractive. In the opposite the long legs are perceptible as a factor augmenting the potential of attraction, but within certain limits: if legs were extended more than 15 % of their initial size the individuals became less delightful than those endowed with medium legs. According to the researchers, explanation is fond of evolution: short or too long legs seem to translate a mediocre biological condition as genetic diseases, problems of health or of the weak immune answers to environmental factors during childhood or adolescence. A l inverse les longues jambes sont per ues comme un facteur augmentant le potentiel d attraction, mais dans une certaine limite: si les jambes taient rallong es de plus de 15 % de leur taille initiale les individus devenaient moins attractifs que ceux pourvus de jambes moyennes. Selon les chercheurs, l explication tient l volution: des jambes courtes ou trop longues semblent traduire une condition biologique m diocre comme des maladies g n tiques, des probl mes de sant ou des r ponses immunitaires faibles des facteurs environnementaux pendant l enfance ou l adolescence.

Size and social middle

There is always in France a net difference in height according to social middle. So, top executives and liberal professions measure 178 cm on average, that is 3,2 cm more than the workers or agricultural farmers.

Size, job and remuneration

In the democratic societies, some inequality is considered as unfair: in seniority and equal certificates, the slightest remuneration of the women is perceptible as unfair, as sexual discrimination, or of ethnic or religious minorities. However, remuneration also varies with size, to the advantage of the big. 182 cm assets earn 5 525 dollars of more a year than a 165 cm man (given Americans, on 2003). The participation in job could be a first explanation of bonus in size  but this is not case: the stature of the person is not corr l e with unemployment. It is the school past which seems in reason: the sons of farmers are those whose schooling is the shortest. The threads of workers, of employees, of dealers come then. The threads of frames and of the upper intellectual professions are those

who make the longest studies. It is data brought back in France in 2003: less awards a diploma one on average to the small men and goes out of the school system earlier. An Australian study presumes that the small boys are treated as though they were younger children, and therefore lacking maturity: the teachers make them prioritairement reduplicate.
Of course, some small men undertake long studies and pass difficult exams. They remain however penalised in their remuneration: in 1996, in USA, every thumb of additional size (2,54 cm) adds 2 % of additional wage.
It is possible to compare this economic discrimination with the effects of colour of the skin or of type. Whites, other things being equal, earn 15 % more than the blacks in USA, 20 % more in England.
The big make nice professional careers because they impose more easily their authority, favouring aptitude to command and progress. The small men have less often access to functions of responsibility.
This privilege of size is true in the private sector, but not in the public sector in France, where recruitment and promotion are made with anonymous written tests, where jury meets the candidate only when games are made.

Size and suicide

According to a Swedish study (American newspaper of Psychiatry), the small men would have, in comparison with the big, a risk more important to commit suicide. 3 075 suicides in a cohort of a million Swedish young people were analysed over 15 years. There is a link between size and risk of suicide. So, for five centimetres less, the risk of suicide would augment by 9 %. The smallest would have, in comparison with the biggest, twice more chances to put an end in their days. Other studies had already arrived at these conclusions, but also showed a strong correlation between suicide and socioeconomic level. And yet in Swedish study, neither the level of education of the young people, nor the social level of their parents affect link between size and suicide. Some factors, as family disturbances, could influence growth in childhood then psychological state at the age grown-up, a weak weighty catch during the childhood being linked at the risk of suicide at the age grown-up. The small men were also single more often than the big. And marriage appeared as a factor reducing risks of suicide.

Stereotypes have the hard life

Childhood is deluded with tales and with legends the characters of which are giants and dwarfs. The baby Poucet, Bilbo Hobbit are imaginary heroes who succeed in going out of all delicate situations, and show intellectual and moral qualities in touch with their small size. The size of the men is also a source of funny effects: an American Internet site updates the directory of the men of small sizes: the persons of whom they make fun are small men, and not dwarf, with a threshold which it is possible to put in 160 cm. Below, "serious" roles  or seducer, are possible (Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone), underneath, comic actors (DANY DEVITO, Roberto Benigni, Dustin Hoffman) are found only. The big, they, are endowed with a natural authority. In USA, on fourteen last presidential elections, the biggest of both candidates won eleven times. In the press, in the cinema, rare are photos or plans representing the bigger woman than the man. Some small men are however photographed with large top models: they infringe the rule. It is then the photographed man, and not the woman, who is seen as showing of courage or of recklessness. C est alors l homme photographi , et non la femme, qui est vu comme faisant preuve de courage ou de t m rit .

Conclusion

Size has a big social importance. For the men, small size is often a disadvantage: with the women who find the small men less attractive, and with other men, bigger, often less disposed to respect and to confidence. The women, in most cultures, prefer the large men (what is reciprocal). The tall men get married earlier, have more children, and have better wages. The impact of size in our society being principally the reflexion of our perception, we should question, so that small size does not remain discriminating. If you want to know about it more: The power of the big, Nicolas Her pine, Collection Landmarks. Editions
Discovery.

Dr C Bou vattier
ABS PAMPHLET PAEDIATRICS
N 221 DECEMBER, 2008
Saint - Vincent hospital of Paul. Paris