What is height and why height depends of so many factors

What is height and why height depends of so many factors

Today I’ll explain some basics of height increase, You will read about average height of ethnic groups. We will also analyse changes of height during time, and for this we will take statistics of MLB players from 1870 to 2010 year. I think it will be pretty interesting 🙂

What exactly is human height?

First of all we have to define human height term – human height is a distance from bottom side of feet to the top of a head (when you’re standing)

Your height depends of various factors :

  • your parent’s height – this how tall will You be is written in Your genes which are mixed from genes of Your’s parents.
  • the food You eat – a food with a lot of calcium (f.e. Milk and milk’s products) will keep Your bones strong and tough. The calcium is very important to Your teeth and bones.
  • Your lifestyle – if you keep your body in good fit then You will grow healthy, stretching exercises are the most important for your height.

Height statistics

Now look over this graph which presents a average height of MLB players :

Average height of MLB players over time

You can see that the height is increasing in time. It’s caused by one reason : the child is almost everytime taller than it’s parents, because the geneticall material is mix of stronger genes of both of them.

Black people height

Height of black men
Height of black men

Height of white people

Height of white men
Height of white men

Height of hispanic/latina men

Height of hispanic/latina men
Height of hispanic/latina men

The red lines show “percentiles”.  The thick red line in the middle is the 50th percentile, which indicates that 50% of the population of Men have Height (or stature) taller than the line, and 50% are shorter.  Similarly, the lowest red line, the 5th percentile line, indicates the Height where only 5% of the male population is shorter.

As You can see the white people are the tallest, and hispanic are the shortest. This is caused by genes. Little example for those who don’t understand.

We have 2 people – woman and man, both are short so they don’t have genes which can make their children tall. Why ? Gene of high height is stronger than gene of low height. If they will have children then this children will have mixed genes of both of them, they aren’t tall so children can’t be tall also.

I wish that You understand, english isn’t my native language 🙂

3 thoughts on “What is height and why height depends of so many factors

  • Also along with serbs, there are some tall but also nothing of what most of you are speaking of. children of 15-16 years old being 6’9 common. Shaq wasn’t 6’9 at 15. The nordic nations have tall people overall with the normal man being 1.79cm, then like anywhere else you have your extremes anywhere from 6’3 and up is extreme height.

  • I am about 1.75 and my father is 1.85,my mother is 1.60.I am 17 years old.My doctor told me that I will grow of my father’s height.
    What do you think about it and what can you advice?
    Thank you in advance.

  • I’m 16 years old and im only 5 ” 4 (1.62 cm) i’m so sad… all my friends are more than 5 ”7 I’m a girl.. :/

  • Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *