• Question: How come people are shorter and taller??

    Asked by meg123 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 19 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by ciaragrimesxox.
    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Hi meg123,
      There’s two things that will affect how tall you are – firstly your genes and secondly the environment. About 60-80% of the difference in people’s height comes from the genes that were passed on to them from their parents, and about 20-40% of the difference in related to our nutrition as we grow up (for example, if people are malnourished they will have stunted growth and end up not being as tall).
      So a lot of the reason why people are shorter and taller is to do with how short or tall your parents are, but also having a healthy balanced diet & get lots of exercise will make sure that you don’t grow more slowly than you should!
      Hope this answers your question 🙂

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