Ask Us Anything: Why do humans stop growing?
It’s more complicated than you think.
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Human height can vary quite a bit, with the tallest folks reaching peaks of six, seven, and even eight feet tall, and the shortest people standing at two, three, and four feet in height. But most people will fall into an average range of between five and six feet. Why did we land at that particular height—and why aren’t we taller?
Natural selection and millions of years of time helped humans land at the heights we are at today. It’s clear that early humans with certain anatomies were more likely to survive and thrive, thus pushing the Homo sapiens population to the shape it is today.
Paleontologists know that body size and height shifted upward about 2 million years ago when early Homo species evolved from their ancestors, Australopithecus. In fact, as one 2012 study published in the journal Current Anthropology points out, “body size is one of the major features that distinguish australopiths from early Homo and early Homo from Homo erectus”.
But how we reached our modern heights and why our species isn’t still growing is still fairly a mystery. We explain all this and more on this week’s episode of Ask Us Anything. Tune in here, and read the article that inspired this episode here.
