Research-backed
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Aren’t most of us intrigued to find out whom our future child will resemble? Have you not often found yourself wondering for hours about this?
Modern science is capable of determining the physical characteristics that a child might inherit from their parents. According to the Gene Theory, the traits and characteristics are passed on to the offsprings from the parents through the process of gene transmission (1).
The genes of a person can be classified into two sub-categories: the weak genes and the strong genes. Physical characteristics such as dark-colored eyes, dark complexion, dark-colored and curly hair, thick lips, big nose, and a broad chin are the dominant or the strong genes. Whereas, light-colored hair, red hair, straight hair, light complexion, blue or gray eyes, and left-hand dominance are classified as weak genes.
What Decides Your Child’s Looks?
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To understand the concept of strong and weak genes better, we’ll break it down for you. The genes can also be classified as dominant or recessive, which essentially predicts the inheritance pattern of specific characteristics. It determines the probability of the passing on of a certain gene to the offsprings.
What’s The Color Of Your Child’s Eyes?
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The variations in person’s genes determine the eye color. The color is directly proportional to the amount of melanin found in the iris’s front layers. An abundance of melanin results in brown eyes and a comparatively lesser melanin content results in blue eyes.
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If both you and your spouse have brown eyes, the child is more likely to have brown eyes too. However, if one parent has blue eyes, and the other has brown, the gene predictability of the child stands an equal chance for both the traits. On the other hand, if parents have blue eyes, then there is a 99 percent chance that the child too will have blue eyes. Similarly, if both have green eyes, there is a high probability that the child too will have green eyes. In scenarios where one parent has green eyes and the other has blue, both the traits stand a fair chance in the game of hereditary and inheritance.
Which Is The Stronger Gene?
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Consider a scenario where the mother has brown and curly hair with blue eyes, while the father is blonde with straight hair and brown eyes. The child is likely to be born with brown and curly hair with brown eyes. Because these traits are predominantly stronger.
Take another scenario where the mother has red hair with light-colored eyes, while the father has brown hair with dark-colored eyes and thick nose. The child will mostly be born with brown hair and a big nose. In most cases, you will find that the strong gene wins over the weak one and the babies are born with the strong genes.
The physical characteristics of a person are determined by the displacement of various genes in their parents. Thus, despite extensive material on this subject, it will always be difficult to determine the baby’s looks with utmost certainty. At times, the genes can even skip a few generations and reappear. This is why you might have noticed your baby to pick up a few traits and physical characteristics from their grandparents or great-grandparents as well.
Parents spend hours obsessing over how their little ones will look like. And why wouldn’t they, it’s an exciting phase for the parents. Numerous questions like whether the baby will have your spouse’s eyes or yours’ would have often stemmed into your head. In the past, it would have been difficult to find answers to questions like what the color of their baby’s eyes or hair would be. However, with the help of this gene theory and the recent studies, one can take a wild guess to figure out how your little one might look like in the future.
