Where Do the Physical Traits We Inherit Come From?
Mom and Dad Physical traits are inherited through genes. Your mother and father each contributed to the way you look by passing on their genetic material to you. Most of the traits that are one can see and identify in another person, e.g. hair color, eye color, height, weight, skin color, fingerprints and shape of face and facial features are called “polygenic” or continuous traits. Unlike the Mendelian traits that include diseases such as Marfan’s Syndrome, Dwarfism and Elephant Man Syndrome, it is not an all or nothing situation. Think of your eye color, hair color, etc. as an average of the traits that your parents posses. Whichever group of traits, either mom’s or dad’s, that was dominant over the other, is the one that is expressed in the way that you look. For example, if your mother has blue eyes and your father has brown eyes, in most cases you will have brown eyes like dad. The reason for this is that brown is dominant over blue. How dark or light your brown eyes are is relate
