When you’re too short or super tall, you’re often the target of several jokes. People often get unfortunate nicknames like “shrimpy” or “sasquatch.” But keeping the teasing aspect of height aside, a person’s overall size can be mean a lot when you consider their overall health. According to research, a person’s stature can affect everything. Whether you consider the risk of heart disease, the risk of cancer or their acceptance in society.
Because of this reason, there are several charts and indexes that can help a person determine their fitness and how they stack against other humans when it comes to physical fitness. To assess the development of a child and how one child develops relative to another, doctors also use these charts. The Height Percentile is one of these charts that is frequently used.
The height percentile chart is often used to get an idea of the distribution of adult heights across America.
Height Percentile for Adults in America
| Percentile | Male Height | Female Height |
| 1% | 5’1.54″ | 4’8.85″ |
| 10% | 5’5.2″ | 5’0.04″ |
| 25% | 5’7.01″ | 5’1.65″ |
| 50% | 5’9.17″ | 5’3.58″ |
| 75% | 5’11.02″ | 5’5.63″ |
| 90% | 6’0.64″ | 5’6.97″ |
| 99% | 6’3.57″ | 5’9.72″ |
When we’re born, we all have a maximum potential height that we can reach. According to medical professionals, even though there are several misconceptions surrounding a person’s height, there aren’t many things you can do to change the height percentile you end up being in. Your genetics play a huge role.
Here, we list other factors that matter.
Why Do People Want to Grow Tall Anyway?
Being a height percentile that labels you as tall is a dream most people want, because according to research, it holds several advantages. Let’s first consider why people want to grow tall.
Shorter Men and Women are Considered to Be Less Attractive and Successful
According to a research, scientists studied the different stereotypes about a person’s height. As a part of this research, participants in the study were asked to imagine a woman who was either short (4 feet and 9 inches) average, (5 feet and 5 inches) or tall (5 feet and 10 inches). After this, the participants of the study rated the same women on different characteristics.
The results of this study showed that shorter females were perceived to be less sociable and attractive and the same trend was noticed in males. The people had an average height were not perceived to be less attractive, however, taller people were perceived to be more athletic, even though some of the taller people did not even exercise regularly.
Tall People Are Richer
This might sound odd, but height is often associated with a person’s earnings. According to one study, an increase of 1-inch in height is equivalent to a 1.5 to 3 percent increase in a person’s earnings. Another study indicated that an inch of height can add $800 dollars to a person’s earning.
This can mean that if a man is over six feet tall, they can, on average, earn more than $160,000 a year. However, the same can’t be said for a person who has a height of 5’5.
Tall People Are More Educated
According to some researchers, since taller people can be more intimidating, they can nail group projects and class presentations. This factor alone ends up getting them good grades in school, which is also one of the reasons why taller people are more educated.
Because of their better education, they tend to get higher-paying jobs. In America, most men having white-collar jobs are an inch taller than men having a blue-collar job. The same pattern can be noticed in the UK where men with white-collar jobs are about 0.6 inches taller than men with blue-collar jobs.
And it’s not just men! The same pattern can be noticed in the female working class, too. Most women in managerial positions are almost an inch taller than women in operational positions.
Another study of Swedish men found that amongst brothers, the taller brother was more educated in most cases, which resulted in him earning more money.
Wrapping Up
Even though you’d like to think that the height percentile you’re in should ultimately decide your salary or the socioeconomic status you achieve, it’s merely a number that should not impact how you live your life. People are often remembered for what they’ve achieved and their efforts to make the world a better place.
Let’s be real here; no one cares about how tall, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs are!