Measured in everyday things
Centimetres and inches are precise but abstract. Measured in bananas or drink cans, a height becomes something you can picture on a kitchen table. That is why “how tall am I in bananas” has become a small internet tradition, and why it is surprisingly satisfying to see yourself as a tower of LEGO bricks. Pick the objects above and the stacks redraw beside you, to scale.
The comparisons scale up too. At the other end of the range, the tiles show how many copies of you, standing on each other’s heads, would reach the top of the Eiffel Tower or the summit of Everest.
How we calculate it
We divide your height by the typical size of each object. Bananas are measured along their length, cans and paper by their height, LEGO bricks by the 9.6 mm body of a standard brick, and balls by their diameter. The landmarks use the Eiffel Tower’s 330 m to the tip and Everest’s official height of 8,849 m.
| Object | Size | At 160 cm | At 180 cm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banana | 18 cm | 8.9 | 10.0 |
| Drink can | 12.2 cm | 13.1 | 14.8 |
| LEGO brick | 0.96 cm | 167 | 188 |
| A4 sheet | 29.7 cm | 5.4 | 6.1 |
| Basketball | 24 cm | 6.7 | 7.5 |
Worked example. Someone 170 cm tall, about 5 ft 7 in, is 9.4 bananas, 13.9 drink cans or 177 LEGO bricks tall. It would take 194 of them standing on each other’s heads to top the Eiffel Tower and 5,205 to reach the summit of Everest, and they are 31% as tall as a 5.5 m giraffe.
Height through the day and through life
Height is not fixed. You are tallest in the morning, and adults slowly lose height from around their forties, about a centimetre a decade at first and faster later. Children, meanwhile, grow fastest in their first year, about 25 cm, more than at any time after.
Questions people ask
How big are the objects?
We use typical sizes: a banana is about 18 cm long, a 330 ml or 12 oz drink can 12.2 cm tall, a LEGO brick 9.6 mm tall without its studs, an A4 sheet 29.7 cm tall and a basketball 24 cm across. Real objects vary a little, so treat the counts as fun approximations.
Am I really taller in the morning?
Yes. The discs in your spine compress slightly during the day, so most adults are about 1 cm shorter in the evening than when they get up. Astronauts grow several centimetres in space for the same reason.
What is the average adult height?
In the United States, the average adult man is about 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) and the average woman about 161 cm (5 ft 3.5 in), according to national health survey data. Averages differ a lot between countries.
Is anything saved?
No. Your height stays on your screen.
Sources. CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey anthropometric reference data; manufacturer dimensions. Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.