Breaking bones for extra height | The Curse of being “Short” in Society
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Malr79UCNuM&t=616s
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Intro
Would you break a bone in your leg for a few inches of extra height?It’s a grisly operation and as painful as it sounds.The new bone material is meant, to grow in the gap between the, broken [music] bones,which is what creates the extra height,but it can go disastrously wrong as we’ll soon see.[music] Many patients end up waking from the surgery, taller,but never really able to run again.The [music] risks are high, the price costly,and the pain excruciating.Leg lengthening surgery is banned in China for cosmetic purposes, because of how often things go wrong.Yet many patients are still willing, to risk never walking properly, again for [music] those few extra, inches of height.To understand their perspective,let’s take a look at what actually, [music] happens during leg lengthening, surgery and why being short,as one patient puts it, can feel like a curse in [music] modern society.
What happens in a leg lengthening surgery?
In August 2024,Hunan TV ran a segment on leg lengthening [music] surgery
segment: a part of sth that is separate from the other parts or can be considered separately
She cleaned a small segment of the painting.
Lines divided the area into segments.
and the brutality, of cutting your leg bones in, half sent the topic to the top, of China’s trending search list.Invented by Gabriel Irizorov, a Soviet surgeon,it was initially created to treat [music] patients with bone deformities.But nowadays, as we can see,it’s more often used as a cosmetic procedure.I’ll briefly explain how this, operation works to give you guys, [music] some context.I won’t show pictures, but it is a pretty vivid description.So, if you get queasy easily,I’d recommend skipping to this timestamp.[music] Leg lengthening surgery is done in three steps.First, the surgeon breaks [music] the bone.Then, insert steel pins 27 cm long and 8 mm in diameter through the tibia.[music] After that, an external frame is attached to the outside of the leg.Then comes the second stage, the stretching process.Each day,the bone segments are [music], slowly moved further apart so, new bone can grow in the gap.
That’s what creates the extra height.[music] During this time,patients usually need regular painkillers, and blood thinners to cope with [music] the daily lengthening, process.
thinner:
[U, C]
a substance that is added to paint, varnish, etc. to make it less thick （涂料、清漆等的）稀料，稀释剂
Finally,the steel pins are left in place for months to support the newly formed bone.Only once the bone [music] has hardened can the pins be removed.Doctors warned that during this time,patients should not expect to, walk normally since the [music], bone is still healing.Doing the surgery is not only time inensive and painful,it is also very expensive.It can cost around 70,000 USD.[music], You can find cheaper options, in places like Turkey where the, price may be around 300,000.The price is high,but arguably that is not [music], the greatest cost you pay because, when things go wrong,they go very wrong.Han TV interviewed several patients who had [music] undergone the surgery.One was a girl called Shiaoi who spent $88,000.
and flew overseas for the operation.She gained 13 cm in height,but it left her bones so fragile, that even walking for a short, while left [music] her out of, breath.A 22-year-old, man from Jangu, also underwent the surgery and, developed a severe infection, in the bones of his legs.He can now no longer walk and faces lifelong disability.The same goes for a 19-year-old girl from Jangi, who grew 6 cm or 2 in after surgery,but can no longer stand on her own and now needs a crutch to get around.And you might be wondering, [music] why do people do this to themselves?Leg lengthening surgery looks like modern torture.And honestly, from reading patient accounts,feels [music] like it, too.It’s expensive, and if it goes wrong,the consequences can be life-changing.[music] The procedure is restricted, in China for cosmetic use because, of the severe risks involved.Yet, people continue to seek [music] it out.To understand why some patients, are willing to put everything, on the line for this surgery,
we need to look at height more closely.It’s [music] one of the most salient psychosocial markers in society.Yet, we don’t really talk about it that [music] much.You’ve probably heard of women having an ideal height for their partners,especially on dating [music] apps.But our preference for tallness isn’t just limited to romance.Height affects us far more than we might realize.[music] And we’re going to see just how much it matters.[music] The ugly truth is this.
An exploration of Heightism
We as humans are subconsciously biased towards people who are tall.It sucks, but it’s true.If you show mothers pictures, of two babies and ask them which, one looks more capable,they’ll consistently pick the taller one.Later, as these babies grow up and enter school,teachers,given two students with the same, test scores will rate the taller, child as better than [music], the shorter one.And in adulthood, this bias doesn’t go away.Studies show we consistently see taller people as more capable,more authoritative,and we attribute traits that have nothing to do with height to them,like intelligence, [music] kindness,and success.But it gets worse, because it’s not just that we look more favorably at tall people.We sometimes struggle [music] to think of short people as capable.Back in 1968,social psychologist, Paul Wilson demonstrated that when we [music] think someone is successful,we subconsciously add a few centimeters to their height.Wilson had a course director, bring in a guest speaker [music].
to five groups of students,but he presented the speaker’s academic status differently to each group.The status ranged from just another, [music] student to highly esteemed, professor in his field.After the lecture,students estimated the height, of both the course director [music], and the guest speaker.Across the five groups,the course director’s estimated height [music] stayed roughly the same.But students who were told the guest speaker was a highly esteemed professor, estimated him to be [music] 3.3, in or about 8.5, cm taller than the group that was told he was just another [music] student.Isn’t this actually insane?8.8 cm is a huge difference.
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Heightism in society, continued
how society views tall and short, people differently, because you see the bias of selecting, tall or short people in specific, ways is also evident in popular, culture.Azenski, [music] points out that tall, characters are usually the leads, who triumph while short or overweight, characters are cast as the sidekick or comic relief.
Humorous content in a dramatic or literary work intended to offset more serious episodes.
between tragic stories are a few songs supplying comic relief
Adding to this, Kimmy notes that there are rarely any short superheroes.[music] Even when there is one, like Wolverine,who is 5’3 in the comics,Hugh Jackman ended up being cast to play him in the movies,and Hugh Jackman is 6’3.Perhaps more confronting is how our bias towards height is reinforced, through language.[music] Kimmy gives several examples.When we fall short, we’re disadvantaged,and having a shortcoming is a bad thing.But if we’re the bigger person, we’re being virtuous.If we stand head and shoulders above the rest, we’re capable.And when we stand tall, we’re often united in solidarity.The way we talk about height reflects societal beliefs,
and it [music] seems to suggest that being tall is a virtue,while being short is a flaw.[music] Why is this?Well, like a lot of other biases we hold,we can trace our preference for torness back to our hunter gatherer days.Marian [music] Schmidz wrote a brilliant paper on evolutionary, psychology and human behavior.They explained that it takes at least thousands of years for substantial, changes [music] in a species to occur.Which means that even though we’re humans in the modern age,our brains are still operating very much the way they did back in the stone age.They write that for 99% of human history, we lived in hunter gatherer societies.In tribes of around 5 to [music], 150 people between tribes and sometimes even within tribes,conflicts often broke out over resources like land, food,and status.The tribes that were more likely, to survive were the ones unified, [music] under a leader since, they could navigate these conflicts, more smoothly.And the leaders that emerged.
were usually the ones who were, strong and fought well.Physical traits that are often tied to greater stature.Nowadays, when we have conflict,we don’t knock each other out to see who gets what.[music] And the people who hold the most power are necessarily, the biggest people in the room.So technically, [music] size shouldn’t really matter anymore.But the association, between size and status still runs deep in our [music] minds.And there’s quite a clear relationship, between leaders in our modern world and their height.In Malcolm Gladwell’s 2005 book, Blink,he shares some fascinating [music] stats on American CEOs and their height.While only 15% of US men are 6 feet or taller,58% of [music] American CEOs are at this height.Even more striking, only 3.9% of American males are 6’2 or taller.Yet a third of CEOs are this tall.If we look at US presidents between 1789 [music] and 2008,the taller of the two presidential, candidates won the popular vote in twothirds of elections.
And all pairs of major party presidential, nominees have held a significant height advantage over the typical US male.Our bias for tallness when it’s, applied to careers and hiring, is called heightism.Taller applicants are more likely, to be hired and studies have, calculated that every inch of, height equals at least a 2.5%, increase in annual [music] salary.This is also known as the height premium.And studies show that over a lifetime,someone who is 6 ft tall can expect to earn 160,000, more than someone who is 5’5.Not only are tall people preferred in the workplace,Grochu’s 2007 study goes even further,showing that shorter applicants are discriminated against more than many typical, stigmatized groups.Showed participants, two job applicants who are similar, in every category except for, [music] one big difference.One pairing featured a gender difference, another age,then ethnicity, religion,height, weight,and sexual orientation.She then compared how often each stigmatized applicant was accepted.
[music] The percentage of shorter, applicants chosen was lower than, all other stigmatized, candidates,female, black,homosexual, Muslim,etc.Except for candidates who are overweight,[music] the issue of heightism clearly exists.But unlike other forms of discrimination, it is harder [music] to call out.Kimmy asserts two main reasons why he hitism, has never really captured popular attention.First, heightism doesn’t really feel like discrimination a lot of the time.[music] Usually, when we think of racial or gender discrimination,there’s a clear perpetrator and victim group.But when, for example,a tall white man and a short white man are placed together,we tend to see them as belonging to the same social group.It doesn’t feel like the typical perpetrator victim dynamic.If the taller person gets the job after an interview,we [music] tend to attribute that to other factors like talent, personality,or even luck.Second, unlike gender,racial, or religious groups,
Kimmy notes that there isn’t really a community around being short.Though, I do think this is changing a little with the short king movement.As we mentioned earlier, whether it’s in our biology,in modern language, or in popular culture,shortness [music] has become associated with inferiority,which makes it harder for people to want to >> [music] >> identify with it.And without a community, it’s harder to raise awareness about the issue.Gender discrimination, received widespread [music] attention from feminist movements,and racial discrimination, was met with protests, organized by communities that were being discriminated [music] against.But when it comes to short people,that kind of community isn’t readily available,which means heism [music] doesn’t receive as much attention in society.Still,even though height preferences, in the workplace [music] may, be subtle and often overlooked,in areas like romance and dating,the benefits of being tall are much more [music] apparent.
Yansy and Emerson’s study on, height preferences in romantic, coupling looked at both female, and male dating preferences for, height.They found that women generally preferred a man who was taller,[music] but the reasons short, and tall women gave for wanting, a taller guy differed.Short women often expressed a desire to feel protected,while tall women were more likely, to [music] bring up high heels, as a reason for wanting to date, a taller man.Both seem to trace back to ideas of femininity.heels as a social construct of, being [music] feminine and the, feeling of being protected, as an evolutionary, driver of femininity.[music] Either way,both motives reinforce the belief that the man should be taller.Men, on the other hand,preferred women who were shorter than them.There was no difference in reasoning between tall and short men.They agreed that shorter was good,but not too [music] short to, the point where it would cause, issues with physical intimacy.Yansy and Emerson.
concluded that height is more important to [music] women than men.They suggested that this may be because in a patriarchal society,women are at a disadvantage.So finding a partner of higher, status is more important for, women [music] than for men.And since we’ve already established the link between height,all these positive traits and status,it follows that height becomes an important criterion women look out for.So height often is important.It’s not something we should consider, but it can and does make a difference.As a result, anxieties around height often manifest in two ways.The first is anxiety coming from people who are directly affected.These are people who are dissatisfied with their own height.It’s important to note here that this dissatisfaction is subjective.Other people might think you’re average height or even tall.But as long as you’re not satisfied with your own height,it could lead you to consider different methods to address the issue.The second is anxiety carried.
by people who are not directly, affected but act on behalf of, those who are.Most commonly, these are parents who are worried about their child’s height.And this kind of parental anxiety is very evident in China.Drew, a mother of a 2-year-old named Daniel,says she first started getting, worried about his height when, others commented that he looked, a bit small for his age.Drool says she knows of [music], other parents who have purchased, height increasing shots,basically human growth hormones for their children in an attempt to stimulate, growth.These shots aren’t cheap.They cost 10,000 yen a month, around 1.5k USD,and these families are often just [music] average workingclass families.Juul explains that many Chinese, families opt for the shots because, they recognize how being short, can affect [music] their child’s, life.She talks about a male friend, who is unable to find a partner, despite having a house and a, car.Usually, this would guarantee a Chinese man finding a wife,
but Drew says because her friend is 167 cm or 5’4.He hasn’t had any success.She adds he’s not badl looking either, but he feels very [music] inferior.Drew says she doesn’t want the same fate for her son.She plans to have her son’s bones assessed,which will supposedly allow her to see when Daniel will begin puberty.If children begin puberty early,this assessment is meant to give, parents a choice to buy puberty, blockers to delay its onset,so their child has a bit more time to grow.Ju says she is not considering, any hormone injections [music], or blockers for a son until he’s, old enough to understand what, is going on and give his own, consent.But she wants to be informed, [music] and she wants to give, her son the best chance he can, get.Meanwhile,Chinese doctors are very vocal, in warning against excessive, injections of growth hormones, as they come with possible health, risks like weight gain,joint disease, and heart disease.Instead of medical interventions, [music] doctors recommend ample sleep,
a healthy diet, and plenty of exercise for growing children.The story, though,is a bit different when [music], it comes to adults who are anxious, about their own height.Tangyong, a 32-year-old programmer,records his fourth grade teacher, asking him to repeat [music], a grade for no other reason than, that he wasn’t as tall as his, classmates.He’s 162 cm or 5’ 3 and he seems to echo Jules’s friend.I think being short does give you a [music] sense of inferiority, and being tall gives you an advantage in dating in other areas.I’m already an introverted person.So in addition to [music] my height,I don’t get much attention in social settings and I feel like I don’t fit in.[music] For Tang, there aren’t many options to become taller.And this is precisely what [music] leads individuals, to consider leg lengthening surgery.We’ve mentioned many cases of it [music] going terribly wrong,but there are also stories of people who are glad they had it.Frank, who’s 172 cm or 5’7,[music] is one of them.
He flew to Turkey for his leg lengthening surgery accompanied, by [music] his wife.Frank recalls constant harassment throughout his life over his height.He was taunted by peers and when, meeting people in real life [music], for the first time,he recounts several incidents where he was told,“You’re shorter than I [music] expected.”, Frank says he decided to undergo surgery not to become more masculine, but just to achieve an average height.Following [music] his surgery,Frank developed a blood clot complication that could have been fatal,but he survived.In the end,he grew 7 cm or around 3 in [music] and is now close enough to his goal height.He feels like his life has drastically, changed and records a specific incident that stuck with him.While still in Istanbul recovering from surgery, he met another [music] patient.And for the first time, Frank perceived this new patient as a short man.Frank says [music] he won’t treat short men any differently or discriminate, against them.
But now he sees why others [music] thought of him as short.And now that he’s taller,he happily remarks that every time a woman approaches him,she’s [music] almost always shorter.At the end of his interview,he points to his wife and their, height [music] difference and, says it was all worth it.Meanwhile,patients like Xiaoi, who face a lifetime of rehab, and physio sessions just to learn, how to walk again wish they could, go back in time and never step, foot into that operating room.
Conclusion
Leg lengthening surgery is highly invasive, [music] painful,and risky.Patients literally gamble their, abilities to walk for a few inches, of extra [music] height.But after we’ve examined the, bias society holds towards tall, people and how that bias can, negatively impact those [music], who are short,I hope you can hold more sympathy for their choice,even if you might not fully agree with it.Because for those who see their height as a huge problem,surgery can feel [music] like the only option.If you enjoy this video, make sure to subscribe.I make lots of deep dives [music] on East Asian culture,so don’t miss out on future videos just like this one.And let me know, what are your thoughts on leg lengthening surgery?Thank you for watching,and a big thank [music] you to my patrons for their endless support.I’ll see you in the next one.Bye.