What is Short stature?

Short stature refers to a height of a human which is below typical. Whether a person is considered short depends on the context. Because of the lack of preciseness, there is often disagreement about the degree of shortness that should be called short. Dwarfism is the condition of being very short, often caused by a medical condition.

In a medical context, short stature is typically defined as an adult height that is more than two standard deviations below a population’s mean for age and gender, which corresponds to the shortest 2.3% of individuals in that population. The median or typical adult height in developed countries is about 178 centimetres for men and 165 centimetres for women.