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July 26, 2006

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Unathletic men are more likely to be obese than are men with a higher degree of athleticism. There's a chicken-and-egg question - are they obese because they're unathletic or are they unathletic because they're obese - but that's not really relevant. What is relevant is the fact that obesity is more common in the lower income groups. You now can see the tie-in between being unathletic and having a lower income.

There's probably a modest popularity benefit to being athletic enough to participate in company softball teams, pick-up basketball games with the other guys, etc. Men who are moderately athletic are probably more likely to follow professional and college sports, an easy source of conversation and bonding with bosses, co-workers and clients.

I haven't thought through the details, but there may be something akin to a Rothschild effect going on here.

If short is unattractive, shorter adults will have worse mating options, and they will choose less intelligent mates. This would cause shortness to be correlated with lower intelligence. This in turn would cause lower wages among short men, without any discrimination.

There are some obvious ways to test this (simply regressing intelligence on short might disprove it).
Just a thought.

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