Your Body Shape Impacts Family Income, Says Machine Learning Study

Dating isn’t only where shorter men and obese women lose out

Image under creative commons license | Courtesy: Song S, Baek S (2021) Body shape matters: Evidence from machine learning on body shape-income relationship

I recently came across an article about “heightism” and was re-introduced with an all-too-familiar concept that I didn’t know actually had a name. I am a guy that stands at just a bit shy of 5 ft 9 or at 174 cm to be precise. That’s pretty average, but in a friend circle where every guy was over 6 feet tall, I’d grown up being bullied about my height.

I got lucky in the dating world and found my lovely wife without having to use dating apps at all. But if research is to be believed, dating is another area where height can come into play for men.

If it is height for men, it is obesity for women. We all know women go through tremendous social pressure for maintaining a certain body type — a type that idolizes a certain “slim” figure. Research suggests stigma around obesity has numerous consequences for the physical and mental health of women.

There is hardly any argument against the fact that humans can be shallow when it comes to dating or personal preferences based on appearance. However, you’d hope that is where it all ends.

But, it doesn’t.