Size does matter – at least when it comes to having children. Research published in Proceedings B, a journal of the Royal Society, suggests that taller-than-average men and shorter-than-average women were more likely to attract a mate and have children.
Dr. Daniel Nettle of the Open University used data from 10,000 men and women born in Britain in one week in March 1958, and his study concluded that the taller the men were, the less likely they were to be unmarried or childless 42 years later in 2000. This appeared to be due to taller men’s greater ability to attract a mate.
Dr. Nettle’s study showed that there was a positive relationship between male stature and reproductive success: The average man of 5 feet 8 inches is less likely to have children than a taller man of 6 feet 1 inch.
For the women, by contrast, those most likely to be married and have children by the same age were between 4 feet 9 inches and 5 feet 1 inch, well below the average height of 5 feet 3 inches. Dr. Nettle explained that shorter women appear to have greater reproductive success partly because there is delayed fertility among tall women. Short women generally reach puberty earlier while the bodies of tall women spend more energy on growing rather than entering puberty.
“It seems that tall men and petite women are favored in evolutionary terms, even in a modern population, so the height difference between men and women is unlikely to disappear,” says Dr. Nettle. (08-20-02)
