8.30.2006

World's Shortest Person

This is the type of surreal thing that you feel must be just another piece of bogus fluff on the internet.

Thapa Magar is just 20 inches (50.8 centimetres) tall and weighs 10
kilograms.

Twenty inches is the size of a large screen monitor. LG Philips is putting out a 20-inch laptop (cnet story http://news.com.com/Ready+for+a+20-inch+laptop/2100-1044_3-5911772.html). You can get a leg lamp similar to the one from the classic 1983 holiday film, A Christmas Story, that measures around 20" (http://www.80stees.com/products/Christmas-Story-Leg-Lamp-20-inches.asp).

Alas, this really is the amazing height of the Guiness Record holder, shown below.




Recently on Discovery Channel, I saw a documentary on Primordial Dwarfism. Individuals with primordial dwarfism measure well below the 3rd percentile on standardized growth charts (http://www.primordialdwarfism.com/medmain.htm). I would have to guess that this boy may fall into this severe category of dwarfism.

It certainly is a life hard to imagine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i watched that primordial doc too. i felt like even their families who knew damn well they were say 20 or 40 years old still treated them like children. they do look like children in a way, and it made me ponder that in addition to the physical contraints that they are experiencing the world socially in such a vastly different manner. it made me think of how interacting with adults in a platform like Second Life might be a very cool experience for them.

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