As of lately, I keep getting the same reoccurring question in my messages or in comments to some of my posts and the question is this… “How can I increase my height??”
And the truth is, after age 20 or so, you’re not likely to grow any taller and the only way you could actually go about increasing your height is via surgery. AND that is NOT something I would ever recommend because they intentionally break both your legs and the recovery process is extremely long and painful and then you look completely disproportionate because even though your legs are longer, your arms and neck and torso will not grow or extend with it And if you think you look disproportionate now, you’ll look even more disproportionate…
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to increase your height naturally.
HOWEVER there are some things you can to to appear taller – to make the illusion that you’re taller.
I also want to say: There’s NOTHING wrong with being short…
We’ve been led to believe that tallness = beauty because that’s that the media has been telling us for decades. But guess what?!
Taller is not superior, by any means.
But I get it. Sometimes it’s nice to create an illusion of being just a little taller – if that’s what makes you feel GOOD.
So here are 6 ways to appear taller when you’re under 5’3″
1.Having good Posture. When we round our shoulders forward and our head drops like that, we would look even shorter than we are. In this modern world that we live in, we are constantly looking down at our phones or hunched over at a computer with a keyboard and that’s definitely not helping our look. Typically, if you have poor neck posture it’s because our neck and chest is tight and our back is weak. So if we focus on Strengthen Back muscles, and stretching our neck and chest muscles, it’s going to help out our posture.
2. Wear certain cuts & styles of clothing that create illusions of being taller. You may not have known that Lady Gaga, Kristen Bell, and Kim Kardashian are all ladies that fall under 5’3”. That’s because they know how to add a few inches to their height with some very clever styling tricks. For example, If you wear a crop top with your high-waisted bottoms, it will help to accentuate this illusion of longer legs. Pointed shoes make your feet look longer, which helps to create the illusion that your legs are longer too. Showing off a little ankle makes it look like you’re not swimming in pants. The list goes on!
3. Wear heels or inserts that give you a 2-3 inches. I always get ads for inserts but honestly haven’t tried them yet because I don’t mind being short in my day to day. I do love throwing on a pair of heels when I get all dressed up though. I also have these nike high top sneakers that have 3 inch heel and nobody ever knows there’s a wedge in them!
4. Correct Muscle Imbalances to balance out your physique. There are ways you can either tone up or slim down a specific area on your body to make yourself appear more symmetrical and balanced. This isn’t something that happens over night and could take years to do so. We see this with bodybuilders and bikini competitors all the time. The nice thing about being petite is that you don’t have to pack on a tone of muscle to see changes. Just the most subtle changes and elicit some confidence boosting results. Just a little bit really goes a long way.
5. Take photos from a low angle. Make sure the lense of the camera is between your knee height to your belly button height. When the lens is at or above your head, you’ll appear shorter. When I first started modeling. Photographers would get low and shoot up at me and again I was like damn, I look so tall! P.s. shorter girls more fit in the frame easier! We have such a great advantage!
6. Work on your confidence. Having more confidence will actually help with posture as well. Let’s play charades! If I had you pretend to be a queen, you’d sit up nice and tall with your chest up and your shoulders back, right? If I had you pretend to be a timid servant who doesn’t have the confidence to stand up to the queen, you’d hunch over, with your head down. Obviously, the queen is going to appear as the taller, bigger and more confident person. So be the queen! The higher you’ll hold yourself and the taller you’ll appear and the more your height will not matter! It’s not a matter of height holding us back, it’s how we hold ourselves and show our insecurities when we aren’t confident.
Going back to what I was saying earlier…
Being petite is not a flaw that we have to fix by appearing taller.
There’s nothing wrong with rocking the high heels but there is something so irrevocably beautiful of about a petite woman who embraces her compactness.
