january-2012

PSYCHOLOGY UP
The height of
happiness
Whether little or lanky, height can have a
profound effect on our relationship with the world.
Mark Smith cuts a long story short
The third tallest man in Th e Netherlands is resting
his hand on me, and it feels as if someone has strapped an
uncooked 1kg steak to my shoulder. Olivier Richters, 22 years
old and 2 metres 17cm in his socks, has spent the aft ernoon
modelling outsized clothes at the annual conference of the
Klub Lange Mensen (literally, the ‘club for tall people’). Now,
he poses dutifully for photos, spurred on by his father-slashmanager,
a man of average height but intense pride, who is
distributing business cards featuring snaps of a strapping
Olivier, muscles clenched beneath the banner ‘Dutch Giant:
Taller! Bigger! Stronger!’
Olivier – a postgraduate student in Information Sciences
at the University of Utrecht – goes on to confi de, somewhat
bashfully, that he is frequently booked for red carpet
appearances on account of his extravagant stature, which is
extreme even among the Dutch, the tallest people on earth.
Helpfully, Richter senior is on hand to corroborate, with an
extensive photo album. Here’s Olivier towering over the original
cast of Th e A-Team. Here’s Olivier on the set of the national
lottery show, during which contestants were challenged to
guess his height. Here’s Olivier in his capacity as spokesperson
for a chain of muscle-building gyms. Height, it seems, is an
advertising byword for might.
Behind us, a TV interview with a female delegate is in
session. She talks animatedly about the myriad challenges
facing tall people – the perilous, low-hanging street signs, the
hurtful playground jibes, the fact that, even in Th e Netherlands,
44 Holland Herald
“it’s almost impossible to shop at an indoor market without
taking a safety helmet with you” – as well as the benefi ts (“I’ve
never had a bad seat at the theatre,” she off ers). Th e news
station seems to have dispatched the shortest anchor possible,
who cranes his neck for comic comparative eff ect. Th e boom
mic operator is wobbling perilously on a high step.
Like it or not, we’re fascinated by height, and by the
unspoken hierarchy that it may or may not imply. Surely it
can be no coincidence that the heroes of romantic fi ction are
described as ‘tall, dark and handsome’, in that particular order?
Participants in the fi eld of online dating – both male and female
– are known to exaggerate their height at least as much as they
do their salaries. And when it comes to the top job on earth,
the American electorate typically favours the taller presidential
candidate over his shorter competitor. One question remains,
though. Why?
Professor George Maat of the Leiden University Medical
Centre may have some clues as to the answer. A lecturer who’s
travelled extensively, he was struck by the internationally held
perception that Dutch people are on an endless upward vertical
trajectory: “It’s very clear just from looking at families today
that Dutch youths are, on average, taller than their parents, who
are in turn taller than their parents,” he reports.
Keen to establish whether this had always been the case,
Professor Maat set about investigating the height of Dutch
men throughout history, via an unprecedented course of