Short men more likely to get lung disease

News today on the BBC that short people are more likely to get lung disease. A large study pulls out a stat that, on average, those with the nasty-sounding Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease are 1.12cms shorter on average than the general population.

No doubt the mediocre-sized population will sieze on this news as evidence that short people are inherently weak, diseased, heading to an early grave, our lack of height symbolic of an underlying ill health.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8446552.stm

From my point of view, maybe this means there are small people out there who could have gained that mediocre status of being average-sized, but because of smoking too many fags instead of eating broccoli, ended up being small. So perhaps there are two groups of small people, the genuinely small, and those who just didn’t eat enough veg to get up to their predestined height.

I can say for myself, I am genuinely small. I haven’t got this way by missing meals or being generally sickly. I eat a solid three meals a day, plus snacks, and am full of health. And yet I am my 5ft 4ins. I would contend that whether you are genuinely small, or small because of ill health, too many fags, or sheer lack of will to grow, it’s all good.

I look forward to the mid-sized majority regarding my brethren (Sisqo, Aston from JLS, and everyone else) explicitly as a troubling minority, misunderstood and avowedly different.