Height is an important characteristic. It changes how you see the world, makes you good at certain things and bad at others, and can inform how other people may think of you. There is one thing about height that you often hear: Guys lie about it. I wanted to find out whether this held true here at Nyack, so I grabbed a few yard sticks and asked around.
Before measuring the guys, I asked girls one simple question: Do guys lie about their height, yes or no? Of the 41 girls surveyed, the overwhelming majority (39) said yes, they do. Junior Hailie Vasquez said, “Yes, they definitely do. I’d say guys who are tall don’t lie about it as much… Like if they’re over six feet,” while sophomore Haley Serrano disagreed, saying, “I don't know. I feel like they all kinda lie about it.” It was not just students who held this belief. English teacher Ms. Maslanek overheard the question and interjected with an emphatic “YES.” Freshman Erica Bowen said she thought guys weren’t normally trying to lie, but rather saw it as generously “rounding up, but like from 5 '5 to 5' 7 or something like that.” Senior Mia Gilbert claims that “If a guy says they are six foot that means they are 5 '10.”
To get to the bottom of this question, I walked around asking guys how tall they were, and then measuring them to see whether they were telling the truth. I used two yard sticks which I stacked on top of each other and placed behind the subject to determine their height. The results contradicted what so many seem to think. Of the 18 boys asked and measured, only two exaggerated their heights and both only by a single inch. Junior Ethan Chacko said he is 5’10, while he is actually 5’9, and Junior Nate Cantor said he is 5’11, while he is actually 5’10. All the rest of the subjects told the truth about their height, and a few even underestimated how tall they were. For a full data table of names, height claims, and height measurements, click this link .
It is important to consider that almost all the boys measured (save four) were juniors, so it is possible that height exaggeration is more prevalent in other age groups. Also, all measurements were taken with shoes on and meter sticks were visible when asking the height of others so that may have skewed the results. I encourage anybody to repeat the experiment with a different group of guys or perhaps with a girl asking them their height; the results might be interesting.
Next time you assume somebody is lying about their height, think again. But remember, though they may not be lying, they are probably giving you their height with shoes on.