Back in July, I wrote about leg lengthening surgery, its painful procedure and asked readers whether they'd go through with it. While most of the replies said that they wouldn't go forward with it, I found this latest reply kind of sad:
I'm 4"10 and have stoped growing since i was 11! I hate being short so i'm all for this oporation! I feel it is esential for my servival in this cruel worl! If I don't have this op i doubt I'll see the end of my teens! Personaly I think the pain would be well worth a couple of inches. I'm in proportion byt i still hate being short!
My reaction: I don't know if the poster was serious or not, but I feel that this is no different from women who diet to look unnaturally thin. Tallness and thinness are both part of the so-called modern beauty myth, yet we don't talk too much about women's height issues. How do you think we can address this? How do we make people feel good about their height? Why are the media addressing the weight issue and play little attention to height? Sure, Glamour (US edition) did a two pager on dressing different petite figures in their January 2008 issue, but you know what was odd? There were no letters printed in the March '08 issue thanking them for that piece. I wouldn't be surprised if Glamour received hundreds, yet decided not to publish the best ones, because, well, height issues aren't all that important. If larger women can go on about being BBW (Big Beautiful Women), why isn't there a movement to be BPW or GPW (Beautiful Petite Women or Gorgeous Petite Women)? We need to find ways to help petite women who have height issues, who feel that they aren't "worth it" because they're small.
