Friday, October 20, 2006

Beauty is in the Genes...

My husband showed me a recent Men's Health article that detailed an intriguing study. Even though more baby boys are born than girls (51% to 49%), new research claims that "beautiful parents are more likely to have girls as their firstborn children." Some celebrity evidence they point to are Brad and Angelina, Tom and Katie, and Ryan and Reese. They surveyed 2,972 "real" parents, and couples who were rated as "very attractive" had girls as their firstborn 56% of the time.

While the statistics are interesting, the explanation for "why" that's given is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. A researcher claims that this reflects a theory that "parents' genes 'know' what's best", and if parents have traits that are better for girls (i.e. fine features), they're more likely to have daughters because those features will help the daughters find mates. On the flip side, the researchers say the same works for sons: "Tall, strong, or aggressive parents are all more likely to have boys."

Hmm... thoughts?

3 comments:

Kimberly Ann said...

i second this thought, being the striking first born daughter of my lovely parents, as i'm sure you would agree since you are also the lovely first born daughter of your own parents...haha ;-)

ryan told me about this a little while back and i thought it was an interesting theory.

Anonymous said...

I don't care if it means I'm ugly or "not as attractive"...bring on the BOYS!!!

Anonymous said...

I guess you must have beautiful parents!