[ptoo]

Why does it matter if they reach their full possible height, barring health complications? At least 80% of height is genetic so creating a value system based upon something that has no bearing on a person's qualities, aesthetic or psychological, is of no importance. Always substitute race for height and see how the line of argument sounds. The only difference is that one trait is generally culturally acceptable to disparage while the other is not.

[JumpCrisscross]

> does it matter if they reach their full possible height

What you’re asking is the implied question. Is the shift due to changing demographics? Or is it evidence of malnutrition, that city kids are not reaching their genetic optima?

At a population level, ceteris paribus and longitudinally, height is a health indicator. Individually or comparatively it’s useless.

[spacephysics]

It’s these reductionist arguments that lose the forest for the trees.

If we see a clear health disparity between two groups who should otherwise have equal outcomes, then it implies there’s possibly something in the environment of one group that’s negatively effecting them. And therefore could possibly have other side effects we’re not privy too.

You say height is of no importance, but a majority of women[0][1] would disagree, and men below average height would also disagree. Perhaps our evolutionary signals point to something other than “a social construct” for choosing height in mates. Wild thought.

0 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

1 - https://www.wsj.com/articles/online-dating-investing-match-t... (quote of note: “A former Bumble product manager says that a majority of women on the platform tend to set a floor of 6 feet for men, which would limit their candidate pool to about 15% of the population.“)

[ptoo]

The majority of women, especially before we began to actually combat racism, would also agree that being white is preferable, as would black men who were subjected to the results of living in a racist society. We currently live in a heightist society so naturally being taller is perceived as better. The crux of the issues is that it shouldn't be considered better. It's a totally inconsequential trait.

[Swenrekcah]

It does matter if people aren’t getting the nutrients they need or if something else in the environment is interfering with their development.

An individual person’s height isn’t an indicator of health but in aggregate the statistics matter.

I don’t see the analogy with race working in this context.

[Zetice]

Height is a quantifiable value heavily influenced by genetics, race is not even a biological concept amongst humans.

[ptoo]

I'm not implying anything about the biological racial differences between humans. When I say racism, I'm talking about people of colour who experience prejudice based on the colour of their skin which is indisputable.