A new study conducted by Professor Tim Frayling of the University of Exeter Medical School disputes the commonly held belief that poverty produces lower income. The researchers found that a genetic predisposition toward being short in men or having a higher than average body mass index in women plays more of a role in income than poverty.
Men that were three inches shorter than average and women that weighed 14 pounds more than average can expect to earn $2,130 less per year. The study was based on an analysis of 400 genetic variants in 120,000 men and women from all levels of income and all races. The result is indisputable and is absolutely contradictory to present theories about poverty and income. The participants were part of the UK Biobank program.
Genetically disposed height and weight cannot be altered. The present assumption that people who live in poverty are shorter and weigh more than people who have higher incomes is based on nutrition. People with lower incomes eat less healthy foods and more unhealthy foods and are subject to being shorter and weighing more according to the prevailing theory. The discrimination against people that are genetically different can produce the same emotional and mental stress that poverty does.
The researchers state that their results are not true in all cases. One notable exception would be the number of male actors that are extremely successful financially and are shorter than the average male. The study does produce new proof that the present thinking about poverty and a relation to financial achievement must be reevaluated on the basis of genetics.
