Okay, well, I just came across a series of words that actually made me stop dead for a few seconds:

[conuly]

Doritos-Crusted Babybels Recipe

I'm not really sure what to make of that, and I've been too scared to click the link!

********************************************************************************

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Comments

[redbird]

Lamarckism plus the widely-shared belief that (the right) exercise can fix almost anything, I think. Then all it takes is the idea that being short is a somewhat-medical problem, like being near-sighted, weak, or fat. You don't have to go to North Korea to find authoritative-sounding people, some with plausible credentials, to tell you that if you do the right eye exercises, you won't need glasses.

It doesn't sound much weirder than sending children to play outside on sunny days to prevent rickets, or the still-repeated advice "feed a cold, starve a fever" (or sometimes the opposite, "starve a cold, feed a fever").

[fred_mouse]

I'm having reading comprehension issues -- are you saying playing in the sun doesn't help with prevention of rickets?

[redbird]

No, I'm saying, Here are these three plausible-sounding claims. One (sunshine and vitamin D) we now know is true; one ("starve a fever") probably isn't, but if you look online there are sites that will say "well, this is why it might work"), and then the basketball one, which we know is false.

We hear a lot of "exercise is healthy and will make you more attractive," and a lot of people think that tall men are more attractive. Starting from scratch, it's not obvious that exercise can make people healthier, and that might make them look better, but it won't make them taller.

I remember (Journal of Maybe I Read It Somewhere) reading about a Japanese official who believed that a "western" diet would, over generations, gradually make Japanese people both taller and whiter. There is a correlation between diet early in life and eventual height, and the average Dutch person is taller than the average person from any other country, but eating more meat won't make people look more northern European.

Department of anecdata: my mother's side of the family are short, going back a few generations, but my father and his sister (born and raised in the Bronx) were noticeably taller than either of their parents, who grew up in the Pale of Settlement a few decades earlier.

[fred_mouse]

Oh! Thank you for clarifying, I greatly appreciate it. I'm a little brain fogged, and could tell I was missing something, but not what it was.