Look into the future and see the women of tomorrow! A new study predicts that future women will be a tad shorter, heavier, and more fertile—that is, if the women who are currently most successful at producing children are any indication. The team studied 2238 women who had passed menopause and so completed their reproductive lives…[and] tested whether a woman’s height, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol or other traits correlated with the number of children she had borne. They controlled for changes due to social and cultural factors to calculate how strongly natural selection is shaping these traits [New Scientist].
Their results show that shorter, heavier women tend to have more children, as do women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol. If the mothers pass on these traits for 10 generations, the average woman in 2409 will be 2 centimetres shorter and 1 kilogram [about 2 pounds] heavier than she is today. She will bear her first child about 5 months earlier and enter menopause 10 months later [New Scientist]. A two-centimeter decrease over 400 years may be a modest change, but the researchers say it’s evolution in action. The study will be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The finding jibes with previous research showing that shorter women are more likely to have long-term relationships with men, and are also more likely to have children (however, that study was based on British people that are now over 50 years old, so it’s not clear if this trend extends to younger generations, or other cultures). Researchers really have no idea why men seem to be drawn to shorter women, but Daniel Nettle, who led the research that shows men prefer shorter mates, has an idea. “We know that men are drawn to things that in our evolutionary past would have been a cue for fertility. And in one sense tallness is a negative cue—tall women reach puberty later and probably their secondary sexual characteristics develop somewhat later,” he says [New Scientist]. However, he stresses that scientists do not have a firm grasp on the genetics of height, so the real answer is undoubtedly more complex.
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Image: flickr / garyknight
October 20th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Does it take into account the extra weight women gain having children? Women on average hold on to 3 – 4 pounds for every child they have. Finding heavier women in menopause have had more children could be an effect rather than a cause. The weight doesn’t have to come from pregnancy either, people gain weight just being married or in long term relationships, like the kind that produce children. In that case too the weight is not the cause of the children, but the children and the weight are caused by the relationship.
If all the variables are not thought of and taken into account, the study is pointless. The height factor is interesting though, but not necessarily correlated with male preference. I like them short and tall as long as they’re pretty. It could be taller women are more likely to be professionally minded and less likey to settle down with kids.
Correlational studies are interesting, but people tend to jump to conclusions and make mistakes. I like the studies that demonstrate a causal relationship better
October 20th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I think there are many leapholes in this study .How can we get the trend of evlution from a nowaday status?
October 21st, 2009 at 9:09 am
You have to wonder why we are even wasting money on studying something like this. What is average now and so what impact does 2 cm make in 400 years? All meaningless drivel.
Where is the study on men?
October 21st, 2009 at 11:26 am
Wouldn´t the height of the fathers impact that of their daughters. Usually tall men are considered more attractive. Unless there is a preference for short persons of both opposite sexes there would be no net trend towards shortness.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I drive thru the west side of Chicago every day, um, I mean “West SiEEd!!” when kids are walking to school. They are like adolecent diabetic weeble wobbles. The study is flawed because these rollie pollies breed at 15, but won’t get a stroke til they reach 50. I don’t know tall from short, but if bad judgement is hereditary it explains why “West SiEEd!” is such a joy to drive by!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Seems like we’ve gone from concern about overpopulation in 1970 (world pop. 3.6 billion) to pretending it doesn’t exist (world pop. 7 billion). Don’t go blaming other countries or some other race besides you own. Women are squeezing out babies everywhere. If the breeders I see are any indication, the women of tomorrow will be some pudgy, some athletic mommies, including the white middle class, ignorant and unconscious of overpopulation while complaining about “growth”, traffic, congestion, prices, housing shortages, crime, water shortage, crowded cities, pollution, food scarcity, rudeness, urban sprawl and loss of farmland, while squeezing out more babies and adding to the problem.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
VaJ, we have to be able to talk about race when talking about population growth, if only to illustrate cultural drives to have children. In Asia more mouths mean more hands in farms and industry. In many under developed Lati American catholic countries, birth control is a sin. In Africa, birth control is often inaccessable.
In wealthier parts of the U.S., native born populations are growing far more slowly than immigrant populations moving in. In 50 years latin immigration/growth in the U.S. will equal the combined growth of white, black and asian populations.
In America’s inner cities there is a cultural acceptance of young single parenthood. That is not a racist statement. The babies of babies are born to a world with far more hardships and far less opportunity than babies born to women who wait until their late twenties and early thirties to have children.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:54 am
Isn´t this yet another study, which suggests, that the appearance of women is so extremely vital? At the same time the media complain about anorectic women and girls and also ladies and even little girls, who suffer from bulimia. Is it true, that most women are into tall guys only because of their height? I would consider that equally superficial.