Babies' Size Impacts Their Adult Income

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Babies' Size Impacts Their Adult Income Male babies who grow slowly in the first year of life appear to have lower incomes when they reach adulthood, Reuters reports of new research from Britain's Southampton University and Helsinki's National Public Health Institute. The results held no matter the socioeconomic status of the child's family. Find out the best month to conceive a boy and the best month to conceive a girl.

Why is there such a connection? David Barker, director of the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at Southampton, said biological processes linked to poor growth seemed to lead to lifelong impairment of cognitive function. "What is striking about the findings is that although children who are short at any age up to puberty tend to do less well educationally and have lower incomes in later life, most of the action is in the first year," he told Reuters. This study, which was presented at the Second World Congress on the Fetal Origins of Adult Disease, surveyed 4,630 men born in Helsinki, Finland between 1934 and 1944. Each participant's height was measured an average of 18 times between birth and age 12. The researchers then linked their heights to their education, income, and occupation as an adult. Find out the top baby names for 2002, as well as the fastest-rising new names.

The results: Babies who were the shortest, that is under 28.3 inches at one year of age, earned an average annual salary of $25,040 as an adult. The tallest one-year-old babies, who were longer than 31.5 inches, earned an average of more than $36,500. "Weight at one year in boys predicts their cognitive function. Boys who grow better between birth and year one have better educational achievements and they make more money when they're 50," Barker told Reuters. "Since, in a democratic society, income is a test of cognitive function among other things, this is rather a striking demonstration of the critical period of growth between birth and one year." Does birth order determine success? The answer may surprise you.