Life's Little Inequities

The March 4 issue of the Canadian magazine Maclean's presents research findings that are alternately amusing and dark:

In "Unlovely, Unloved," Brian Bergman reports news that good-looking children are six times more likely to be safely buckled into shopping cart seats than children who are less pleasant on the eye. The issue of shopping-cart safety is serious because over 30,000 children are badly injured each year in North America due to falls from shopping carts or tip-overs.

I suspect we need to clearly establish the direction of the causal chain here. Are the ugly kids falling out of shopping trolleys, or do they become ugly after they've fallen out?

In the same issue, Christopher Watt presents evidence that the average height of members of a society is proportionately related to the level of equality in it. The Dutch currently stand (forgive the pun) as the tallest people in the world, and according to Richard Steckel, an economic historian at Ohio State University, it is the relative equality within Dutch and other European societies that is leading them to grow quickly. The Netherlands, Canada, and other countries that have universal health coverage, protein-rich diets, and relatively low income inequality will experience continuing growth spurts among their populations