Who is affected by the height anxiety of Chinese people?

Last year, the authoritative journal The Lancet published a major paper.

The paper, based on 65 million samples and 2,181 existing studies, states:

Over the past 35 years, the average height of 19-year-old male and female adults in China has increased by 8.1 cm and 6.1 cm respectively, ranking first and third among 200 countries and regions.

In comparison, the average height increase for men and women of the same age worldwide was only 2.8 cm and 2.1 cm.

Obviously, Chinese people are getting taller. But the cloud of height anxiety still hangs over this land, and it shows no sign of receding.

A careful analysis will reveal that this is actually a process of generational stacking. To put it more bluntly, everyone is taller than their predecessors. However, few people would compare their height with those who are 10 or 20 years older than them.

In other words, height anxiety in the current social context mainly comes from peers, original families, and popular culture.

Let’s first look at parents’ anxiety.

According to data released by the China Maternal and Child Health Center in 2015, more than 80% of parents of boys hope that their children can grow to between 175 and 185 cm. In other words, their offspring should be taller than their peers, but not shorter than the average height. Parents of girls are relatively conservative, setting their expectations between 160 and 170 cm.

Even so, most parents still expect their offspring's height to be higher than their genetic height.

Of course, one important reason why the original family has unrealistic expectations for the height of their offspring is that height has become an important reference standard for measuring the value of young customers in the current marriage and dating market, with a priority even higher than personal appearance, economic level, family background and other factors.

After all, if you are not good-looking enough, you can make up for it with medical beauty; if the salary is not high, you can make up for it with years of work; if you are not tall, you can only lie down.

According to the conclusion drawn by the Youth Development Forum after analyzing data from a well-known dating platform, more than 80% of women hope that men are taller than themselves when choosing a mate, and less than 3% of women accept someone who is shorter than themselves.

Another survey report involving 17,975 women pointed out that more than 13% of the women in the sample clearly required the partner to be taller than 175 cm, and more than half of the women clearly required the partner to be at least 170 cm tall.

If this report truly represents the attitude of the majority of women today, then men in the marriage market who are less than 170 cm tall may have no choice but to stop paying dues and cancel their accounts.

According to the same report, 12% of the 19,053 male samples required that their partner must be taller than 160 cm.

These artificially set height "thresholds" have directly led to the "social extinction" of 169cm men and 159cm women of marriageable age in China.

Social networks are also increasing our height anxiety.

In the Western-dominated entertainment system, decent men can have a variety of personalities and looks, but their bodies are always straight, strong, and powerful. Physical characteristics such as thinness and shortness can only be associated with "clowns."

Although the big stars on the screen are all selected from thousands of people, and there are professional teams behind them to manage their bodies, the general public will not think so much, and will only accept the single aesthetic standard under the accumulated discipline of the film and television industry.

Even in the softer and more neutral Chinese and Korean entertainment circles, altitude is an essential hard indicator for male stars with high traffic.

Even on Hupu, which is famous for its anti-fan circle culture and anti-traffic stars, the straight men will give a break to the traffic star who meets the height standard and give him a comment of "ok, quite tall". This shows how obsessed Chinese men are with height.

Historical experience tells us that anxiety is often accompanied by involution.

Faced with children with developmental delays, some parents in China are willing to spend a fortune to inject growth hormone into their offspring.

Existing data show that growth hormone powder and liquid need to be injected once a day, with annual costs of 24,000 yuan and 74,000 yuan respectively. Fortunately, both preparations are included in the Class B medical insurance catalog. Although growth hormone long-acting preparations only need to be injected once a week, the annual cost is as high as 227,000 yuan and is not included in medical insurance.

While injecting growth hormone can certainly solve many children's problems, the huge profits and fanatical parents have also spawned a large number of non-pathological usage cases.

The abuse of growth hormone may lead to health risks such as endocrine disorders and femoral head slippage in children, but parents who are eager for their children to grow taller do not think this is a worthwhile price.

Indeed, because when it comes to increasing height through bone breaking, growth hormone is at best a drop in the bucket.

As the name suggests, bone-breaking height increase means first cutting the leg bones, then stimulating cartilage cell regeneration through an external fixator, allowing the bones to develop again, and finally, after growing to the expected height, the device is removed to fix the height.

Due to the high medical risks of bone-breaking height-increasing surgery, the Chinese government banned its use in "medical cosmetic projects" as early as October 2006. Of course, some institutions in China still use this banned surgery in secret under the pretext of "humanitarian care."

The strong demand has also given rise to height-increasing agencies.

These people usually work in cahoots with limb-lengthening agencies in countries such as Türkiye, South Korea and Vietnam. They are highly skilled in their profession and know all about the entire surgical process, from visas and renting a house to postoperative care.

Although the local medical level and nursing environment are exaggerated by these agents, the reality is that the risks of leg height increase surgery do not change with the region or the fee. Once something goes wrong, the parties involved will not even have a way to defend their rights.

In order to grow a few centimeters taller, some Chinese people really try their best.

Think about it carefully, can a few centimeters of altitude increase make life better? Is it true that some people lack those few centimeters of height? Do they really have no ACD number in their hearts?

American doctor Charlotte Markey believes:

The positive attitude that medical beauty, including height enhancement, brings to people will not last long. Soon, people will find other flaws in themselves. Appearance may give people certain advantages, but in the end, it is most likely not your appearance and height that determine your life.

Think about the great dwarfs in human civilization, may the force be with you.

References

1. Chinese people are the tallest in East Asia, but I am still lagging behind Netease Data Reading

2. Undercover in the "Bone Breaking and Height Increase" group, someone said: "Even if I die, my tombstone will say 180!" Local observation

3. Why has injections to grow taller become a good business? 36Kr Finance

4. In order to grow taller, they cut off their own legs

5. Height, a topic that all men cannot avoid DT Finance

Author/The Giant of Corsica

Operation/New Draft

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Source: UFO Talk