Famous Sad Love Quotes: Why the secret to raising tall children is to embark on a long-distance relationship

Friday, August 5, 2011

Why the secret to raising tall children is to embark on a long-distance relationship

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 11:39 AM on 5th August 2011

If you're planning to raise a brood of tall children then start thinking about finding a partner who was born in a different region.

Scientists have discovered that if both parents were born in the same town, then their children are on average of a shorter stature.

But if a mother and father grew up nowhere near each other, then their offspring are more likely to grow into tall adults.

Walking tall: If parents grew up nowhere near each other, then their offspring are more likely to grow into lofty adults

Lead researcher Dariusz Danel, of the Institute of Anthropology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said this is due to genetic diversity.

Parents who come from different areas are more likely to have disimilar genes than those who grew up in the same locality.

The greater the genetic diversity, then the greater the chance children will grow up with bodies that operate more efficiently.

Energy saved by this efficiency, Dr Danel told Live Science, is then transferred into growth.

He said: 'This effect is visible in children during the three analysed stages of the development period, ranging from 6 to 18 years of age.'

Dr Danel and his team studied the height of 2,675 boys and 2,603 girls in Poland and cross-referenced this with information about their parents' height and family income.

Their research found, as expected, that height was determined by parental height and wealth, because well-off people are better nourished.

However, they also discovered 'unambiguous' evidence that marital distance accounted for around 20 per cent of the variations in height among boys and 14 per cent in the variation in girls.

This, the study said, is down to 'heterozygosity', or the genetic diversity within each person.

Boys are more likely to be affected because they grow at a faster rate and over a longer period of time than girls do.

Dr Danel said that marital distance would have had a more pronounced effect before the last century.

This is mainly due to diet - most Western children eat more than enough to get the necessary energy to fuel their growth, whereas during times when sufficient nutrition was scarce, marital distance would have proven particularly beneficial.

The research is published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.