Just how small can a mature developed woman be without actually being a dwarf or a midget? I say woman because (1.) women on average are smaller than men, and (2.) a guy can be “skinny” while a similar woman would be considered “undeveloped”. (Yeh, I know, unfair double standard.) So discounting women with the bodies of ten-year old girls, what’s the lower limit? Without being able to use a tape measure, I’d guess the smallest I’ve ever seen were in the four-foot eight-inch range.
I’ve seen a few fully developed and perfectly normal women that were about 4 and half feet tall. Once you start getting below 4 feet there’s usually some other physical or medical issue involved beyond simply being short genetically, (unless you’re a pygmy.)
I took a class on Human growth After Birth, and I’ve actually held on to the textbook all these years. According to (admittedly out-of-date) Human Growth After Birth, Fifth Edition, ed. David Sinclair, excluding the presence of pituitary or other medical issues, height extremes depend upon the group measured.
One chart (p. 27) shows that 3% of English girls are 148cm at age 18. That would fit with your observation of 4.8’. 97% are 172cm (5.6’). Unfortunately, the sample size is not given, so we don’t know how accurate are these statistics.
Darn! I read this at first glance as “Limits of ultra-pettiness” and thought things were going to get juicy! :smack: 
Yeah, people like you just love those kinds of threads. :rolleyes:
I’m not sure what you mean by “without actually being a dwarf or midget” [1]. A woman who is unusually/abnormally short is a dwarf by definition. There are various medical conditions that can lead to dwarfism, but no particular one is required for the term to be used. You just have to be unusually short. What is considered “unusually short” varies depending on who and where you ask, but the Little People of America considers anyone (male or female) with an adult height of 4’10" or under to have dwarfism, and recognizes that some people who are slightly taller may also have dwarfism.
[1] “Midget”, by the way, is considered fairly offensive. I was surprised to learn this myself, but it is, so best to avoid the word.
Midget was originally a term for a specific medical condition: abbreviated growth and development due to inability to create or use human growth hormone. Dwarfism (dwarvism?) is a blanket name given to several different syndromes that have in common short stature due to developmental abnormality- e.g., stunted limbs, etc. Simply being naturally short and slender of build would not necessarily make you a dwarf.
BTW: I agree a thread about “The Limits of Ultra-Pettiness” would be highly interesting, but alas I have nothing to contribute. If anyone wants to start that in the Pit, be my guest.
Actually, what the LPA’s website says is:
Little People of America (LPA) defines dwarfism as a medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4’10" or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that."
Emphasis mine.
I’m reading that as a person 4’10" or under who does not have a diagnosed medical or genetic condition such as achondroplasia would not be considered a dwarf.
Well, what other than a medical or genetic condition could cause someone to be unusually short? People don’t shrink in the wash. Nutrition is of course an important factor, but I’d consider malnutrition a medical condition. Everyone’s height, be it short, tall, or average, is controlled by genetic factors, nutrition, and whatever other relevant medical conditions may be present in the individual.
Would not be considered a dwarf by whom? The LPA website says that many people with dwarfism never receive a definitive diagnosis, so I don’t think they require a doctor’s note. Merriam-Webster defines dwarf as simply “a person of unusually small stature”, and the other dictionary definitions I could pull up online seem to concurr. I don’t see any reason why someone who’s “just really short” without any special medical problems or other physical abnormalities should not be considered a dwarf…unless one wishes to use the term “dwarf” exclusively to mean a really short person with other physical abnormalities, a usage which seems outdated and insulting.
dwarfs have other gross physical differences while merely short people do not. If you measure the ratio of limbs and head and other such markers, you can tell a merely short person from a dwarf, even if they are both the same height.
Only if you define the word “dwarf” as “a short person with other gross physical differences”. You are free to use the word in this way if you like, but as best as I can tell it is not defined as such by the medical community, the LPA, or any modern dictionary. When I quoted Merriam-Webster above I did omit part of the definition: the complete entry for 1. a. is “a person of unusually small stature; especially : one whose bodily proportions are abnormal”. However, that is “especially”, not “exclusively”.
I’m still not sure what the OP intended by his question, and his subsequent use of the phrase “naturally short” hasn’t helped to clarify matters. What would an unnaturally short person be, the victim of some horrible experiment?
If he was wondering how short a woman could be without there being some reason for it then the question is incoherent, as there are reasons for everyone’s height. An unusual height probably has an unusual reason behind it, likely a rare medical condition or strange diet during childhood. If he was merely wondering about the average range of heights for women, a quick Google turned up this list of height and weight charts based on information gathered in the NHANES III survey of the US population. For non-elderly white women (the data is divided by race) the average height is around 5’5", and only about 5% are less than 5’ tall.
So would you consider a perfectly developmentally normal ethnic pygmy, living for whatever reason in mainstream American or European society where the average height is much taller, to be a dwarf?
On a bell curve of heights anyone more than 2 standard deviations below average height would be considered unusually short. That would probably work out at about 4’10’’.
That is not making any kind of value judgement, it is just saying that they are considered to be very short, just as we would consider anyone over about 6’8’’ to be very tall.
Just as some of the very tall people will have genetic or hormonal disorders which make them tall, and some will be tall people from tall families, the converse is true regarding short people.
BTW ethnic pygmies have a genetic abnormality which makes them short, thus the would fit into the LPA’s definition of a dwarf.
Some people are going to have other health problems resulting from their unusual stature, or the condition that caused it, some aren’t.
For the majority of people at the extremes of height, the real problems are not within themselves, but are caused by the attitudes of other people. Personally (and feel free to disagree with me) I don’t feel a discussion about “correct” labels is really going to help deal with that.
I’m 4’ 10" and my understanding is that while I technically could be a small person (should that be capitalised?) because I don’t have any of the accompanying issues of achrondroplasia or lack of human growth hormone, it doesn’t really count. I mean I could identify as a dwarf if I so chose but it would be a tad pointless.
We’re currently investigating my older son’s lack of growth and it’s pretty much being put down to my lack of height. If only I lacked girth as well :(.
What difference does it make what I would consider him? If he wished to join the LPA or something then the important thing would be what they considered him, which has nothing to do with me. It also has nothing to do with the OP. The reason I have brought up the issue of the standard current definition of the word “dwarf” is because the question as phrased in the OP is unclear.
However, whatever was intended the information provided so far should probably answer the question as best as it can be answered. If he wanted to know how short a woman could be yet not be considered a dwarf, the answer seems to be no shorter than 4’10". If he wanted to know how short a woman could be without having any known medical condition that impedes growth then I don’t think that’s a question that can be definitively answered. However, the farther you go from the middle of the bell curve the more likely it is that a medical condition or other unusual cause is responsible. Under normal circumstances most people are going to fall within the average range for any attribute, that’s why it’s average!
Sorry to snip a great post to split hairs, but wouldn’t a very tall person from a very tall family or very short person from a short family be very tall/short due to genetic factors? Well, diet would probably come into it too, but wouldn’t the main reason for their unusual height be an unusual inherited gene or combination of genes?
Lamia, I feel like we’re getting into a Humpty Dumpty debate over the meaning of words. You’re apparently using “dwarf” to simply mean anyone of unusually short stature. That’s within the dictionary definition of the word, but that’s not what I meant. And of course people who are small are so because some feature of their genetics caused them to be; that goes without saying. At the risk of carrying this into Great Debate territory, you seem to be rejecting the very idea of someone being “abnormal”, and insisting that everyone simply is whatever height they are, and that no further consideration is possible.
What I’m gettin at is this: there are people who are three feet tall. How many of these people are perfectly proportioned bonsai miniatures of normal adults? I’d feel safe in saying zero. Three-foot tall people are that height because they developed in a manner definably different from the norm. For that matter, you could have a Giant Achrondroplasiac, who would be of average height but abnormal build. Ok then, so what are the limits of “normal” development?
I’m probably somewhere in the first or second percentile for men at 5’0. (From the chart 5% looked like 5’4)
It just seemed like I never had a big growth spurt. When I was real young, I was about the height of everyone else, but they grew and I really didn’t grow all that much, just a little bit. One side of my family has quite a few short people and my sister is a bit short so its probably genetic.
I had a friend who said being born premature sometimes caused that (I was), but I think that was just some myth she found somewhere.
I know that’s not what you meant. What I don’t know, as I have said repeatedly, is what you did mean. I am familiar with the use of “dwarf” to mean “an unusually short person with short limbs” and “midget” to mean “an unusually short person with normally proportioned limbs”. Using those definitions, any unusually short person is either a dwarf or a midget. Your OP asks how short a woman could be without being either one, which would seem to mean “How short can a woman be without being unusually short?” That’s a rather strange question, but 4’10” seems to be the best answer.
I am genuinely mystified as to how you could get that from “the farther you go from the middle of the bell curve the more likely it is that a medical condition or other unusual cause is responsible. Under normal circumstances most people are going to fall within the average range for any attribute, that’s why it’s average!”
So is your real question “How short can a woman be without suffering from some form of short-limbed dwarfism?” Well, it seems to have been the 19th century sideshow organizers who cared most about this issue, and a brief web search on PT Barnum’s stars reveals that his most famous woman “midgets” were Mercy Lavinia Bump (aka “Mrs. Tom Thumb”), 2’8", and Lucia Zarate (aka “The Puppet Woman”), at 1’8" the smallest woman on record.
The shortest living woman, Zhu Haizhen, is 2’7" and her limbs appear normally proportioned in the photo. She also looks more like a toddler than a young woman, but I cannot tell if this is because her sexual development was stunted along with her height or because she is wearing children’s clothes and has a stocky figure. I’m sure she’d look much more mature if given a fashionable makeover.
Yes, someone of a height that falls outside the normal range obviously developed in a manner different from the norm. But there’s no reason why an unusually small statured person must have short limbs, although the medical conditions most likely to cause unsually small stature are also typically associated with short limbs.
I’ve already posted a link to a chart showing the average height range for American women. I don’t know what more you want than that.
I realize that the word midget has fallen out of favor. But Webster’s defines it as "a very small person; specifically, a person of unusually small size who is physically well-proportioned. I have seen “midgets” by this definition in old movies, but I don’t seem to see them anymore. I think it may have something to do with progress in growth hormone treatments.
At any rate, I assume by some of the definitions that I’ve seen here that “midgets” would also be considered a kind of dwarf. I had always thought there was a difference.
Proportionate dwarfism was always rare, and I would imagine that most people today would rather pursue an ordinary career than get stuck playing one of Santa’s elves for the rest of their life. But proportionate dwarfism is usually the result of some kind of hormonal problem, and you’re right, these conditions can often be treated with medication now. I have some personal interest in this issue, because even though I am of average height I have endocrine problems and may eventually need growth hormone replacement therapy myself. Luckily endocrinologists can do amazing things these days. As my doctors assured me when I first got sick, “Anything your body could make we can give you in a pill if you need it.”
Here’s what the LPA website has to say:
There was once a thread on the SDMB about how the unusually short should be referred to, and it was only then that I first learned that “midget” was considered offensive. I was unaware of the term’s origins and thought it sounded nicer than “dwarf”, a term I associate first with a fantasy race of short, axe-wielding warrior/miners. But given the choice between a term to describe myself that evokes 19th century freak shows or one that evokes Tolkien, I guess I’d go with Tolkien too.
I believe that in the past there have been bad feelings within the short-statured community over the “proportionate” and “short-limbed” distinction. It has not always been treated as a medical distinction but a value judgement as well. Proportionate dwarfs might be considered more attractive and “normal” by both others with dwarfism and people of average height while short-limbed dwarfs might be dismissed as ugly and misshapen. I can understand why people would consider it preferable not to emphasize this distinction, especially when trying to work together to deal with problems that all short-statured people face – like practically everything being built on a scale that’s too big for them.