'Some settling may occur.' We've all seen this statement on boxes of cereal, bags of potato chips and several other products. We've all opened those boxes and bags and discovered that - by golly, they were right - some settling did in fact occur. We've all looked askance into those newly-opened containers, the contents thereof fully settled and blissfully calm, and thought settling, my ass!
Bet you don't know what it's called, though. Here it is. You heard it here first: The Museli Effect! No bull. That's the official name of the sneaky, stealthy and downright despicable act of settling.
Some things that are subject to The Museli Effect don't come with a 'may occur' notice. Human beings for instance. No, humans have to work it out for themselves. And when they do, it's quite a shock. We settle 1/4" to 1/2" every decade after age 40. By age 70, women have Museli-ed about 2", men about 1.5."
If it's any consolation - and it's damned little, if you ask me - the Museli-ed portion of your body isn't actually gone. No, not all. It just migrated down to your feet. It's pretty much a 1:1 ratio. Again, starting at age 40, some people's feet increase half a shoe size every decade. Okay, there is a little consolation: the bigger the base, the more stable the structure, so when your feet finally fulfill their growth potential, you probably won't tip over as frequently as you used to. Granted, one's tipability quotient is impacted by other factors that are difficult to quantify. Alcohol comes to mind.
What got me started on this settling thing is: Trish and I measured our heights recently. I'm not going to divulge the results but I'll tell you this much: we done been Muesli-ed!
my feet are getting bigger but I think I lost it from another area
ReplyDelete