Recently, a research has announced that, in about 400 years, women’s height will be two centimeters shorter and their weight will be one kilogram heavier. It may sound like a tall tale since women are becoming taller and slimmer these days.
However, Steven Stearns, a biologist at Yale, has been researching 14,000 residents in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1948 to now, and according to his assertion, women are evolving into shorter and heavier figures.
For around 60 years’ research period, the residents’ generation has been changed. With 2,238 women’s data, the researchers adjusted the data for height, weight, cholesterol level, blood pressure, genitalia condition and other elements related to pregnancy.
Based on the survey, rather short and heavy women were more likely to have a baby than tall and skinny women. Furthermore, women with low level of cholesterol and blood pressure could easily have babies. Surprisingly, those features were not directly inherited from one’s mother but one’s grandmother.
With this sort of evolution continuing, in 2409, women will be two centimeters higher and one kilogram heavier. What is more, first pregnancy will be five months earlier than now, lengthening the time of menopause ten months longer.
Professor Stearns said, “What is interesting is that genes affect much more that socio-cultural effect. Biological elements evolve in the direction of amplifying reproduction. ”
Their findings were released recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and they drew attention from many other science journals including Telegraph in UK and Science Daily in U.S.A.
However, Steven Stearns, a biologist at Yale, has been researching 14,000 residents in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1948 to now, and according to his assertion, women are evolving into shorter and heavier figures.
For around 60 years’ research period, the residents’ generation has been changed. With 2,238 women’s data, the researchers adjusted the data for height, weight, cholesterol level, blood pressure, genitalia condition and other elements related to pregnancy.
Based on the survey, rather short and heavy women were more likely to have a baby than tall and skinny women. Furthermore, women with low level of cholesterol and blood pressure could easily have babies. Surprisingly, those features were not directly inherited from one’s mother but one’s grandmother.
With this sort of evolution continuing, in 2409, women will be two centimeters higher and one kilogram heavier. What is more, first pregnancy will be five months earlier than now, lengthening the time of menopause ten months longer.
Professor Stearns said, “What is interesting is that genes affect much more that socio-cultural effect. Biological elements evolve in the direction of amplifying reproduction. ”
Their findings were released recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and they drew attention from many other science journals including Telegraph in UK and Science Daily in U.S.A.
Those are interesting findings. However, I wonder how well this can be generalized to the population. Not just to the those living in the US, but to the world in general. I'm assuming that it doesn't generalize very broadly. They seem to be pointing to genetic influences that are driven by social behaviors.
ReplyDeleteIn Korea these days, it seems that women are getting taller, not shorter. Do you think that these findings represent the Korean context? Why (not)?
Dan