• Question: do u think beauty is in your genes

    Asked by mannion8 to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Chris Kettle

      Chris Kettle answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

      True beauty is indeed in your genes – as your genes are responsible for your face structure, pigmentation and bone structure. However, the recognition of beauty is in other people’s genes – as in, it is other people who look at soemone and see the beauty.

    • Photo: Anouk Gouvras

      Anouk Gouvras answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      define beauty! If you mean face symmetry, bone structure etc then yes. But it all depends on a)personal preferences and b)society.

      You’ve heard about how in history e.g. Rome, ancient Greece and middle age Europe considered plump women beautiful whereas nowadays being lean is considered attractive in Europe (in many countries in West Africa, being big is very beautiful, they don’t like thin. So every time I visit they say “oh you’ve put on weight” to compliment me. And I start exercising more). Also in ancient Egypt the more rolls of fat and double chins a man had the more rich, prosperous and therefor attractive he was considered to be.

      So what Judith says is very true, even though physical appearance is very much influenced by genes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and beholder is influenced by society, family, friends, and personal interests.

    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Nice answer, Anouk! There are things you can do to help ‘improve’ on what nature gave you, though (and, no, I’m definitely not suggesting plastic surgery!!). Smoking will give you yellow teeth and wrinkles, so that’s best avoided and a healthy diet can affect your appearance and make you more attractive. Some researchers in our psychology department looked at this recently:

      http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2012/Title,82727,en.html

    • Photo: Leisha Nolen

      Leisha Nolen answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      I hate to say it, but I do think so. Physical appearances are really strongly controlled by your genes, so how you look is dependent on what genes you inherit. Luckily, different people find different things beautiful – so many different kinds of genes will mean many different kinds of beauty!

Comments