Thursday, April 24, 2014

Why are some kids bigger than others?


It's well known that kids vary in height. "The influence of genetic factors on differences between children's Body Mass Index increases from 43 percent at age four to 82 percent at age 10, reports a new study. The researchers studied 2,556 pairs of twins from the Twins Early Development Study. Data were collected in England and Wales in 1999 and 2005 when the twins were four and 10 years old respectively"(Science Daily 1). The twin analysis confirmed previous studies with a doubling of genetic influence, called 'heritability', showing that the reasons that some boys and girls are bigger than others are 43% genetic at age 4 and 82% genetic at age 10. This is caused by gene-environment correlation  A child's environment can trigger genes that cause kids to be tall. Kids may have a tall gene, but if they live in an environment where being shorter is preferred the gene may never activate.
Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140423221418.htm
Nature of Science Themes :
Science is collaborative and Science is based on evidence

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