Human Nature

Fat, Height, and Air Travel

In the last week, two well-known travelers-movie director Kevin Smith and New York Times columnist David Pogue -have used Twitter to tell the world about their bad flying experiences. Pogue was rebuked by a tall passenger seated behind him. Smith was ejected from a plane for being fat. Thanks to their popularity-Smith has more than 1.6 million Twitter followers, and Pogue has more than 1.3 million-the two men have stirred up plenty of debate over the incidents. Their juxtaposition raises an interesting question: Do we treat excessive length and width differently? If so, is that unfair?

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