Do environmental factors impact height?

Introduction

Height is a complex trait influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Understanding how environmental conditions impact height can provide insights into public health, socioeconomic disparities, and biological adaptation.

Key Insights

Socioeconomic and Environmental Stressors:
- Height is negatively impacted by stressful environmental conditions such as high homicide rates, income inequality, and urban air pollution. These factors are more influential in countries with lower socioeconomic status .
- Improved quality of life indicators, such as higher GDP per capita and lower corruption perception index, are associated with increased average height .
Genetic vs. Environmental Contributions:
- Genetic factors play a significant role in height, but the influence of environmental factors is more pronounced in early childhood and in poorer environments .
- The heritability of height increases with age, with genetic factors becoming more dominant during adolescence .
Impact of Childhood Environment:
- Childhood living conditions, including nutrition and exposure to diseases, significantly affect adult height. Improvements in these conditions over generations have led to increases in average height .
- Socioeconomic factors such as parental education, social class, and family size also influence childhood height, though their impact has lessened in more recent generations.
Geographic and Cultural Variations:
- Height variation due to environmental factors differs across global regions, with North America and Australia showing higher genetic variance compared to East Asia.
- Environmental factors such as climate, soil properties, and topography significantly affect plant height, indicating that similar factors could influence human height in different regions .

Conclusion

Environmental factors, including socioeconomic conditions, childhood living environment, and geographic variations, significantly impact height. While genetic factors become more influential with age, early childhood conditions and socioeconomic status play crucial roles in determining adult height. Improvements in living conditions and reduced environmental stressors can lead to increases in average height across populations.

Do environmental factors impact height?

Summary

Consensus Meter

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

People Are Taller in Countries With Better Environmental Conditions

Adult height is an indicator of a stressful environment, with income inequality, air pollution, GDP, CPI, homicide rate, LE, unemployment, and homicide index being the most significant factors affecting height.

Genetic and environmental influences on height from infancy to early adulthood: An individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts

Height variation is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, with environmental factors being more significant in early childhood and genetic factors increasing with age.

Environmental and genetic regulation of plant height in soybean

Plant height in soybeans is influenced by genetic and environmental factors, with potential for increased yield through improved shoot architecture.

Influences on childhood height: comparing two generations in the 1958 British birth cohort.

Childhood height in Great Britain has increased by 1 cm between 1958 cohort members and their offspring, with environmental factors like smoking and breastfeeding having less impact on the younger generation.

DETERMINANTS OF VARIATION IN ADULT BODY HEIGHT

In modern Western societies, about 20% of adult body height variation is due to environmental factors, with nutrition and diseases being the most significant non-genetic factors affecting growth and adult height.

Environmental landscape determinants of maximum forest canopy height of boreal forests

Maximum canopy height in boreal forests is positively associated with climate, terrain slope, and depth-to-water, with depth-to-water being the strongest factor explaining 26% of canopy height variation.

Relative effect of genetic and environmental factors on body height: differences across birth cohorts among Finnish men and women.

Heritability of height increased across Finnish birth cohorts in the first half of this century and leveled off after World War II, with environmental factors being more important for women than men.

More than climate? Predictors of tree canopy height vary with scale in complex terrain, Sierra Nevada, CA (USA)

Climate, topography, and soil factors influence tree canopy height, with topography playing a greater role at finer spatial scales.

Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Weight, Height, and BMI from Birth to 19 Years of Age: An International Study of Over 12,000 Twin Pairs

Genetics play a growing role in weight, height, and BMI from early childhood to late adolescence, while common environmental factors have a stronger influence in pre-adolescent years and are more significant for girls.

Effect of Genetic and Environmental Factors on Growth

Parental height has the most significant impact on growth, with anorexia, dyspepsia, atopic dermatitis, frequency of breakfast, and quality of sleeping time also affecting height.

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