Which side of the family is height determined by?

[ScrewIt]

I've always been curious about this topic and every now and then ponder about. Always i've assumed offspring height is dependent on the mother's side. But thinking of my other relatives...that theory has not been too consistent.

on another note, i've noticed odd genetic outcomes...i know some friends like the eldest is the shortest child in the family....the youngest is the tallest..etc.

So really, is height determined by the maternal or paternal side of the family? Or is it possibly by the more dominant gene? Or possibly a combination of the parents' height = offspring height?"

 

[Damian]

Dude, don't even worry about this kind of stuff. If you really want to figure this out, I'll bet they have some height calculator on WebMD or something, but those are total BS. Best thing to do is just make sure you are healthy, so your body can grow.

-Damian

 

[ghostin]

Height is not inherited from one sex specifically. Your height is dependent on a lot of things.

Height has so many genes linked to it that its a dice roll as to how tall your gunna be based on your parents height. There are a myriad of things that could affect it like individual bone lengths, hormone levels, hormone timing, nutrition, vitamins.

Unfortunatly height is not as straightforward and predictable as something like eye color is.

 

[Senor Steel]

From my experience with my family, males seem to be tall(well not tall but around 6') while females seem to inherit the short gene. But then again, i've seen the opposite with friends.

 

[The Forms]

Odd that you mentioned this, because we learned about this yesterday in bio.

Some things are controlled by one gene. So if you have, say, freckles, that's a dominant gene showing itself. If one of your parents passed along the freckles gene to you, then you'll have freckles.

However, not everything about you is completely controlled by just one gene. There isn't one 'height gene.'

It turns out height, weight, and skin color tend to split the difference between your parents. Obviously, this isn't ALWAYS how this works out, but its a general thing.

So its not like since your mom's dad is tall, then you'll be tall. So I guess if you look at other people in your family you'll probably be about as tall as them.