• Question: Does Height Affect the brain

    Asked by Declan to Rose, Kirsty, Ben on 12 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Rose Turner

      Rose Turner answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      Some studies show a relationship between height (how tall someone is) and intelligence: taller children tend to be more intelligent than shorter children. But that is certainly not always the case – lots and lots of shorter people are more intelligent than taller people! It’s probably not so much to do with being naturally (genetically) tall or short, rather that people get taller when they are well-fed and well-looked after and these things are also important to brain development (and these patterns emerge when we test lots and lots of people). Stephen Hawking is about 5’7 which is below average height for a man 🙂

      … If you’re talking about height as in altitude (like being up a mountain), when you’re high up you can develop altitude sickness which reduces oxygen to all organs including the brain. In severe cases this can cause the brain to swell and can have long-term effects on brain function.

    • Photo: Kirsty Miller

      Kirsty Miller answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi Declan 🙂 No height as such won’t affect the brain. There might be a correlation (relationship) though between height and brain size, but this would likely be because if you are taller, then all of your organs would be bigger! As Rose says though, this doesn’t necessarily relate to intelligence – there are lots of factors that can influence intelligence, but height isn’t one of them!

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