If you were a short child, did you end up becoming a short adult?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:5”4 is an average height for women. Why is that something that’s controversial?

It's not unless you think facts are optional.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I’m 4’11.

[Anonymous]

I was the shortest kid in my class until high school and now I'm 5'4". Which I do not consider short because it is the average height for a woman in the US.

[Anonymous]

Female, I was the tallest in my class. Started my period early (10) and stopped growing. Ended up 5'4"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5”4 is an average height for women. Why is that something that’s controversial?

It's not unless you think facts are optional.

It's because it doesn't take genetic background into consideration and that’s what people are comparing themselves against. I'm 5'4. For every country of my heritage (white, Northern European) the average height is 5'6 to 5'7, so 5'4 is short. Sure, the average female height in Nicaragua is 5'1, so maybe 5'4 is tall! But people compare themselves most directly to people who look like them. The US is extremely heterogenous so you get a lot of extremes that play into that average but it might feel like that doesn't apply to you. It goes in both directions.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine was a foot taller (that’s not an exaggeration, an actual foot) than me until she stopped growing in high school. She’s 2” taller today. I’ve seen it more pronounced in guys. The 90th percentile toddlers inevitably end up in the 5’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Similar idea as the post about tall children. If you were consistently small in elementary school, did you end up a short adult?

Yup. Always a short kid and ended up 5'3" as an adult female.

[Anonymous]

I was like off the charts short all through childhood, until puberty. I’ve been 5’4” since like 9th grade and am happy with my height.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. I was the shortest kid in my class every year in elementary. I am now average height for a woman (5'4"). For a long time I still thought of myself as short, though, and it was only after numerous people told me as an adult that I was weird for saying I was short, that I eventually figured out that I wasn't. It was just hard to shake this identity that had been deeply engrained in me as who I am throughout my childhood. Even in HS, people referred to me a short or little, even though by then I now realize I was probably approaching average and actually had friends who were shorter than I was for the first time. I'm not sure why my growth spurts just kind of went unnoticed. Maybe they were too gradual.

I think of you as short, PP, and I’d venture to say so do many others.

I’m 5’3” and while we’re not super short, we are in fact short.

The average height for a woman in the US is 5'4". How is that short?

]

Well that's the cutoff for petites. I can't find any data for the median height which is a better number than average. But yes, I think people who are 5'4" and under are tiny.

I’m 5’4” and am only called tiny by really large men.

[Anonymous]

No, I was usually one of the shortest kids in any of my elementary school classes, but I ended up an average 5'5" (I'm a woman). Same for my sister, who was extremely tiny until age 13 or so but is at least 5'6" now. Both of us kept growing until we were 15-ish.

[Anonymous]

I was one of the shortest (also youngest) and ended up 5’3”.

[Anonymous]

To OP: yes.

I thought I was smallest because I was often youngest. No, I ended up also shortest -ish in my class. I’m only 5’0. I think there might have been 2-3 other girls at my height or an inch shorter by the end of school.

[Anonymous]

I was always amongst the shortest in my class. Out of 26 kids (small class) I was 4th-5th shortest in elementary school (I know because they would line us up based on height and I always had 3-4 kids ahead of me. I was a little more average in middle school and again amongst the shortest in high school. I am 5’3” and 120lbs. Pretty average in southern Europe where I am from, but in the US I definitely feel small and can usually fit in American children clothing size (12).
I always wished I were taller, but American men always loved my size… and I slowly started to be fine with it. In my experience, being small for a woman is not bad and usually preferred to being big or large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. I was the shortest kid in my class every year in elementary. I am now average height for a woman (5'4"). For a long time I still thought of myself as short, though, and it was only after numerous people told me as an adult that I was weird for saying I was short, that I eventually figured out that I wasn't. It was just hard to shake this identity that had been deeply engrained in me as who I am throughout my childhood. Even in HS, people referred to me a short or little, even though by then I now realize I was probably approaching average and actually had friends who were shorter than I was for the first time. I'm not sure why my growth spurts just kind of went unnoticed. Maybe they were too gradual.

I think of you as short, PP, and I’d venture to say so do many others.

I’m 5’3” and while we’re not super short, we are in fact short.

The average height for a woman in the US is 5'4". How is that short?

Just because it’s the average doesn’t mean it’s not short! The average American woman is short at 5’4”. It’s like saying if the average weight for women is 175lbs, it’s not overweight because it’s the average.

Height and weight are different because weight can change. The average for a variable quality is different than the average for a fixed quality. And average weight person can become below or above average. An average height person cannot.

5'4" is not tall but it's not short. It's right in the middle. I'd say 5'5" is also in the middle. Everything above that is some degree of "tall" and everything below is some degree of "short". But 5'4" is not short. It's right smack in the middle.

+1. There is some definite ignorance of basic math and statistics here.

+2 Wtf (NP)

[Anonymous]

Then poster who thinks 5'4" is "tiny" is, I think, struggling with the idea that it's preferable for women to be "tiny." She's 5'3" and doesn't like the idea that she's just a little shorter than average, or even average. She likes the idea of being a itty-bitty, cute little woman. Like someone you could just tuck away in your pocket and carry around. So she's fighting the idea that she's actually statistically extremely normal and not actually special in any way.