How long do short people live for

The study was conducted to evaluate one aspect of the entropy theory of aging, which hypothesizes that aging is the result of increasing disorder within the body, and which predicts that increasing mass lowers life span. The first evaluation of the impact of human size on longevity or life span in 1978, which was based on data for decreased groups of athletes and famous people in the USA, suggested that shorter, lighter men live longer than their taller, heavier counterparts. In 1990, a study of 1679 decreased men and women from the general American population supported these findings. In the present study data on the height, weight, and age at death of 373 men were obtained from records at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Diego, CA, USA. Men of height 175.3 cm or less lived an average of 4.95 years longer than those of height over 175.3 cm, while men of height 170.2 cm or less lived 7.46 years longer than those of at least 182.9 cm. An analysis by weight difference revealed a 7.72-year greater longevity for men of weight 63.6 kg or less compared with those of 90.9 kg or more. This corroborates earlier evidence and contradicts the popular notion that taller people are healthier. While short stature due to malnutrition or illness is undesirable, our study suggests that feeding children for maximum growth and physical development may not add to and may indeed be harmful to their long-term health and longevity.

Last week, a team of researchers led by Geoffrey Kabat of Albert Einstein College of Medicine published a study showing that each additional 4 inches of height increases the risk of all types of cancer by 13 percent among post-menopausal women.

That statistic should shock you. If we could hold all other risk factors equal—which, of course, we cannot—the average woman in China, simply due to her height, would be 13 percent more likely to get cancer than an average Guatemalan woman. Dutch women, with an average height above 5-foot-6, would be more than 25 percent more likely to get cancer than Guatemalans. And female models and WNBA players—well, the numbers look even worse for them.

Most people I know would love to be taller. Parents with slow-growing children often ask pediatricians for growth hormone to save their kids the indignity of being short. I get it. Tall people—particularly tall men—earn more money and are held in higher esteem than their shorter colleagues. Tall people also have higher IQs and a wider selection of mates. The association between height and success is perpetuated, in part, because tall, successful people marry tall and successful.

Most of the benefits of height come down to our inability to separate correlation from causation. Height doesn’t make people smart; the two traits are simply outgrowths of the same underlying cause. Parents who can afford to feed and raise their children well have kids that are both taller and smarter. There’s plenty of evidence that height is easily separable from intelligence. Here’s just one compelling point: The tallest sibling in a family is no more likely than the others to have the highest IQ.

I don’t blame short people for wishing on a star for height, or parents for seeking out growth hormones for their children. The sociological data is compelling at a surface level, and there are some concrete advantages to height—being able to reach the top cupboard is convenient. But the evidence linking height to life-threatening disorders should give us all pause.

Physicians and epidemiologists began studying the link between height and longevity more than a century ago. Early researchers believed that tall people lived longer, falling prey to the correlation–causation confusion described above. In fact, in the early 20th century height was indeed a reflection of better nutrition and hygiene, which increased longevity. Once the studies were limited to otherwise homogeneous populations, a consensus emerged that short people are longer-lived.

Among Sardinian soldiers who reach the age of 70, for example, those below approximately 5-foot-4 live two years longer than their taller brothers-in-arms. A study of more than 2,600 elite Finnish athletes showed that cross-country skiers were 6 inches shorter and lived nearly seven years longer than basketball players. Average height in European countries closely correlates to the rate of death from heart disease. Swedes and Norwegians, who average about 5-foot-10, have more than twice as many cardiac deaths per 100,000 as the Spaniards and Portuguese, who have an average height just north of 5-foot-5. Tall people rarely live exceptionally long lives. Japanese people who reach 100 are 4 inches shorter, on average, than those who are 75. The countries in the taller half of Europe have 48 centenarians per million, compared to 77 per million in the shorter half of the continent.

Setting aside simple mortality, individual diseases are also more common among tall people. American women above 5-foot-6 suffer recurrent blood clots at a higher rate. Among civil servants in London, taller people have been shown to suffer from more respiratory and cardiovascular illness. And then there’s cancer. Height is associated with greater risk for most kinds of cancer, except for smoking-induced malignancies.

Unlike intelligence, which has a merely coincidental relationship with height, there are plausible biological explanations for why short people live longer. Researchers have found that the lungs of taller people don’t function as efficiently, relative to their bodies’ demands, as those of short people. Explanations for the link between height and other disorders are slightly more speculative, but largely credible. Tall people have more cells, which may increase the chances that some of them will mutate and lead to cancer. The hormones involved in rapid growth may also play a role in cancer development. It’s even possible that the foods that lead to fast growth during childhood may increase the likelihood that a person will eventually develop cancer. The link between height and clots probably has to do with the length and weight of the columns of blood that travel between the heart and the body’s extremities.

The recent study linking cancer to height in post-menopausal women also helps disprove a popular theory—that height is inversely related to longevity because men are taller and die younger than women. Tall people, we now know, suffer more illness even when gender is eliminated as a variable.

The fact that tall people die younger appears to be an immutable physical reality. A short person is like a Honda Civic: compact and efficient. Tall people are Cadillac Escalades. With all that extra weight and machinery, something’s just bound to go wrong. Against that backdrop, those who wish for more height for themselves or their children face a Sophie’s choice. Even if a couple of extra inches of height will increase your standing in the community, your IQ, and even your lifetime income, does that justify trading in years of your life?

At 6 feet tall, I’m no giant, but I’d gladly shrink down a few inches to fit better into airplane seats. And as I get older, and begin to worry about what percentage of my life is behind me, I’d practically miniaturize myself if it would get me five or 10 more years.

How Long Do Emos Live, also identifiable as How Long Do Short People Live, How Long Do Idiots Live, How Long Do Rats Live or How Long Do Monkeys Live, among other variations of the phrasal template How Long Do X Live, refers to a trend on TikTok where users display a Google search result regarding a type of person's lifespan, most being 12 to 15 years. Typically, people engage with the joke searching something like "how long do emos live," then messaging their emo friend the phrase "I will never forget you," in accordance with the most prominent audio used in the trend. Although traces of the screenshot and similar trends date back to mid-2021, it didn't take off en masse until early 2022.

'How Old Is' Google Searches refers to an exploitable image trend in which a Crying Black Man Googles how old a person is. It is the most likely precursor for the "How Long Do Emos Live" trend. On February 2nd, 2017, Redditor kkkid69420 posted a collage showing a Google search of the life expectancy of Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog (shown below). The post reached over 5,400 upvotes in five years.

"How Long Do Emos Live?" Origin

Although the exact origin of the fake Google search is unknown, a likely precursor is the life span of the Shiba Inu, the same breed as Doge. On March 8th, 2021, Instagram page dark_iron_gains posted a video that showed a screenshot of the Shiba Inu lifespan, having the bodybuilder character in the bottom frame looking depressed about it. The meme (shown below) received roughly 78,100 views and 16,000 likes over the course of one year.

On July 9th, 2021, TikToker girlie_violet0 posted a video that included a fake screenshot of a Google search reading, "how long do idiots live," and overlayed text reading, "Who you gonna be sending this to?" The video (shown below) received roughly 13,200 plays and over 270 likes in eight months. It is the first known use of this trend.

On March 1st, 2022, the TikTok account xmaking.snap.groups posted a video that used the aforementioned screenshot as well as the song, "Never Forget You," by Zara Larsson & MNEK. The video makes an edit halfway through that cuts to the TikToker writing a text to their friend, essentially calling them an idiot by typing, "I will never forget you. You will always be by my side." The video (shown below) received roughly 4.2 million plays and 768,400 likes over the course of 15 days.

On March 6th, 2022, TikToker hunqtu posted a video that used a re-edited screenshot, changing the Google search to, "How long do emos live," which gave the answer, "10-13 years." He then sent a Snapchat message to a girl named Kayla, reading, "I will never forget you." The TikTok (shown below, left) received roughly 3.5 million plays and 423,500 likes over the course of ten days.

Other TikTokers hopped onto the trend, using the same screenshot but editing in a new word. and texting their friends the same message. For instance, on March 11th, 2022, TikToker playa_man edited in the word midgets, earning roughly 114,900 plays and 15,600 likes over the course of six days (shown below, right).

On March 8th, 2022, TikToker unfound..naila posted a version that used the same sound but with the life expectancy of monkeys, earning roughly 8,000 plays in one month (shown below).

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