Want a Tall Kid? Try a Long-Distance Relationship

Check your atlas: The height of your child may be determined, in part, by how far apart mom and dad were born.

If mom and dad were born in the same town, their children are slightly shorter on average than the kids of parents with far-flung origins, a new study finds.

The researchers think the reason boils down to genetics: Parents originating in very different regions likely have very different genes relative to a mother and father who both grew up in the same hometown, where their own parents grew up. That greater genetic diversity may lead to children with bodies that operate more efficiently than others. Energy "saved" by this efficiency could then go to growth, said study author Dariusz Danel, of the Institute of Anthropology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Want a Tall Kid? Try a Long-Distance Relationship - Yahoo! News