Live Science discusses a strange bit of statistics – showing that the farther apart you and your mate are from, the taller your offspring will be:
The researchers think the reason boils down to genetics: Parents originating in very different regions likely have very different genes relative to a mother and father who both grew up in the same hometown, where their own parents grew up. That greater genetic diversity may lead to children with bodies that operate more efficiently than others. Energy “saved” by this efficiency could then go to growth, said study author Dariusz Danel, of the Institute of Anthropology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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Height is determined by a number of factors, including parents’ height and socioeconomic status, because wealthier people tend to be better nourished. Earlier studies had found conflicting evidence about whether marital distance — the distance between parents’ birthplaces — matters in how tall children get.Danel and his colleagues used a dataset of the heights of 2,675 boys and 2,603 girls in Poland, measured yearly in the children’s schools. The researchers also had information on parental height and family income.
The latter two factors played an expected role in a child’s height, but the researchers also found “unambiguous” evidence that marital distance mattered, too, Danel said. Marital distance explained about 20 percent of the variations in height among boys and 14 percent of the variations in height among girls, he said.