Assortative mating by body height and BMI

Finnish Twins and their spouses

Bibliographic Data

ID19459639
AuthorsKarri Silventoinen (0000-0003-1759-3079, University of Minnesota, corresponding author), Jaakko Kaprio (0000-0002-3716-2455, University of Helsinki), Elina Lahelma (0000-0002-1064-1333, University of Helsinki), Eero Lahelma, Richard J Viken (0000-0001-5358-2540, Indiana University Bloomington), Richard J Rose (0000-0002-9389-6090, Indiana University Bloomington)
Year2003
Volume15
Issue5
Pages620-627
Publication date2003-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Human Biology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1042-0533 • E-ISSN: 1520-6300
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajhb.10183
PMID12953173
OpenAlexW2102318213
LanguageEN
Citations received48
References cited23

Assortative mating by body height and weight is well established in various populations, but its causal mechanisms remain poorly understood. We analyzed the effect of phenotypic assortment and social homogamy on spousal correlations for body height and body mass index (BMI, kg/m 2 ). Our data derived from a questionnaire administered to the adult Finnish Twin Cohort in 1990 (response rate 77%) yielding results from 922 monozygotic and 1,697 dizygotic adult twin pairs who reported information about their body height and weight and that of their spouses. Assortative mating was evident for body height and BMI. For body height, the effects of social homogamy (0.24 in men and 0.29 in women) and phenotypic assortment (0.27 and 0.28, respectively) were about the same. For BMI, the effect of social homogamy was stronger (0.31 in men and 0.28 in women) than the effect of phenotypic assortment (0.13 in both men and women). When assortative mating was taken into account, shared environmental factors had no effect on phenotypic variation in body height or BMI. Our results show that assortative mating needs to be considered in population genetic studies of body height and weight. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 15:620–627, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc

Assortative mating · Biology · Body height · Body mass index · Body weight · Cohort · Dizygotic twins · Obstetrics · Population · Demography · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities · Genetic Associations and Epidemiology · Medicine · Endocrinology · Internal Medicine

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