"But who of you worrying can add a single cubit to his height?" So asked St Matthew (height unknown). "Short people got no reason to live." So said Randy Newman (4.5 cubits tall). The songster intended satire against all forms of bigotry: instead he was himself accused of fomenting prejudice. Is "heightism" equivalent to racism, sexism, or ageism? Or is it over-sensitivity? Nothing, as the saint instructs, that a sensible person should worry about.
There are, at last count, some 70 "tall clubs" in America. They have different names: the Tip Toppers, the Big Guys, the Stratospherics. They share the same entrance requirements as laid down by their international federation: minimum height, 6ft 2in for men, 5ft 10in for women. According to one of their spokesmen, Barry Umbs (6ft 9in), they like to sit around talking tall and swapping jokes about short people (eg, "I like short people, but I can't eat a whole one.") They do some advocacy work: more king-size beds in motels, more legroom on airliners. But they are not lobbyists - they are gloaters: tall and damn glad to be that way.
Newman's Short People can console themselves with Napoleon (5ft 6in). And Hollywood has always favoured the little guy. It's a camera thing. Among screen tough guys Alan Ladd (5ft 5in) was the most jeered at. Cagney was two inches taller. Bogart towered over them at 5ft 8in.
Among modern stars who look big on screen but don't qualify for the local tall club is Tom Cruise (5ft 7in). And Sly? Unofficial estimates run as low as 5ft 7in, only six inches more than Danny DeVito and a foot less than Dolph Lundgren (6ft 6in), his ring opponent in Rocky III. Well done, that cameraman.
Thanks to the ingenuity of the American pharmaceutical industry parents can now enhance their kids' height. Last month the Federal Drugs Administration gave its approval to Eli Lilly's synthetic human growth hormone, Humatrope, for children afflicted with "idiopathic short stature". They are not suffering from a hormone deficiency but are children whom nature, in her wisdom, designed short.
What for the FDA constitutes "short stature"? Four-ten in fully grown women, 5ft 3in in men. For approved children the therapy entails daily injections during the growth years. Average height gain is around three inches and the total cost around $100K. Most medical insurance covers it.
Parents nowadays know how to predict their child's adult height. You measure the toddler at two and double it. What should Mr and Mrs DeVito have done about little (too little) Danny? Pump him full of Humatrope or trust that he would rise (as he has) magnificently to the challenge of being navel-high to Dolph Lundgren?
No one, recalling their own childhood, will begrudge kids the right to feel normal. Under-sized kids are teased and bullied, and grow up with a poor self-image. It is not a small problem: 500,000 children in America, it is estimated, will qualify annually for HGT. Big bucks.
Where will it stop? Not, one may be sure, in the doctor's surgery. Try the following Google search: human growth hormone+where can I get it? Today you will get 108 hits, next month probably 1,000. How long before spam arrives assuring us that "size does matter, and we're not talking penis"? How many parents will not think that extra inches must surely give their child an advantage later in life? Have not presidents from Lincoln (6ft 4in) through Clinton (6ft 2in) to George W Bush (6ft) been taller than the average American male? It's the ultimate tall club. And who knows, the way things are going, our children, if we dose them right, may all be eligible to join.
· John Sutherland is 5ft 11in and getting shorter every year.
