She might have to duck her head when she walks through a door.

But Britain’s tallest teenage girl likes towering over her friends.

Jessica Pardoe, 18, who is 6ft 9in in bare feet, said: “I’m really proud to be this tall. I don’t mind being a bit different. And it has so many advantages.

“I love going to music festivals and it’s great to be able to see over everyone’s heads.”

Since going to a festival this summer, art student Jessica is becoming a celebrity herself.

“Lots of people wanted me to pose for photos with them,” she says. Now a Facebook tribute page set up in her honour has more than 3,500 fans.

Jessica’s height runs in the family. Mum Lisa, 41, is just over 6ft and dad Andrew, 43, is 6ft 7in. Brother Niall, 17, is an inch taller than her at 6ft 10in, while stepbrothers Liam, eight, and Ethan, six, are 5ft and 4ft 8in.

Jessica weighed 8lb 10oz at birth and measured a long, but not unusual, 53cm from head to toe. But at 18 months she was much taller than other tots.

“Passers-by used to give me strange looks,” says Lisa. “I’m sure they believed she was too old to be in her pushchair.”

By the age of 11 Jessica was ­already 5ft 8in – 3in taller than the average British woman. “We think she has stopped growing now – she’s been the same height for 18 months,” says her mum.

She is perfectly healthy with a pair of stunning 38in legs, which she believes to be the longest in Britain, and size 11 feet. Read more »

Men who are both obese and tall face a much higher risk for developing potentially fatal blood clots, though overall the risk remains quite small, according to a new study.  The researchers report that extra weight and extra inches together seem to raise the risk more than either alone.

"Tall and obese men had more than a fivefold higher risk, compared to short and lean men," said the study's co-author, Sigrid K. Braekkan, who warns the vertically and horizontally gifted to avoid sitting in one place for too long. Read more »

Ping! The lift doors open in the lobby of Leicester's Holiday Inn to reveal a huddle of legs, arms, chests and … well, that's about it. It's like a badly taken family portrait with everyone's heads chopped off.

The missing heads, after much maneuvering and careful unfurling of assorted body parts, are eventually ducked under and out of the doorway.

Such is life when you're in the Tall Persons Club of GB and Ireland. Even exiting a lift comes with complications.

No-one takes much notice, though, because the hotel foyer this morning is a happy hubbub of similarly-sized XXX-largers all gathered to go off on a guided tour of our city's historic sights.

As someone who's just shy of 6ft, I feel like I should be wearing a white suit and shouting, "De plane, boss! De Plane!"

Carsten Mathiesen is marginally the tallest at 7ft 2in.

He's come all the way from Denmark for this, the Tall Person Club's annual get-together, held this year in Leicester.

"This weekend means more to me than Christmas, to be honest," says the 32-year-old. "It is the time when I meet all the persons I really love." Read more »