Personality Traits You Can Blame on DNA
Years ago people never heard the word DNA, which is our genetic makeup from our ancestors from millions of years ago. Ethnicity is what tells us where we came from and how much of a percentage we are of a certain nationality. We might have been told we were European when we were younger but as science and technology have fine-tuned this DNA quality we inherit, people have found that not all family members contain the same percentage of the ethnicity of their forefathers, even though they are full blooded siblings. Parents can look at their children and say this child has grandmother’s eyes or I don’t understand where they got a particular trait. With the new technology boom on genetics and DNA, cancer can be cured in some instances and scientists have done wonders for the people with HIV. They can live longer, fuller lives compared to 30 years ago. DNA has also been a plus for law enforcement in regards to solving many cold cases and finding the killers 20 and 30 years later living a normal life. So you are wondering about your child and what is the problem with him or her in regards to certain areas of their life. It’s something you have to do the research on because it might not be your fault. It might be the DNA genes, your child inherited. Addiction is one gene that you can’t blame yourself for. There are families that have had problems with all their children in regards to addiction because maybe both mom and dad partied too much or one of the grandparents has a substance problem. Here are some more traits to think about.
DNA is called our genetic blueprint and everyone has something they try to blame their parents for and the main thing that does connect us to our loving parents is our genes. The question is what do we as humans inherit from our parents, and where do our characteristics come from as humans develop over time? It’s one thing to look at the eye and hair color of your children and yourself as parents, but do your children really inherit certain qualities like cleverness or the lack of? Physical genetic features are expected to pass on down and also some of the traits our folks have that you might ponder about. When it comes to the traits, scientists are still trying to figure out if we are a product of our environment or is this part of genetic makeup?
People are still clueless when it comes to figuring out if DNA brings out the best qualities we have? Or is this something that is a learned behavior?
DNA is really a blueprint of molecules that creates proteins, turns the protein into cells, which create a living thing. An example of this are plants, people, and the dinosaur era. You can picture DNA as a tightly wound coil that is passed down as chromosomes. When people discuss genes being passed down, they mean the genes that are within the set of chromosomes that come from both parents.
There are many things that are wired into us at birth meaning certain physical traits, are genetic. Eye color, hair color, and skins color. Height is another trait and this is all depending on that blueprint.
The physical characteristics are most obvious to others that we inherited them from, however; there are traits like personality, interests, and thinking that are the traits that people are debating. Where does your love of a certain sport come from? Did it come from mom because you rode bikes with her or was it an interest you developed? The answers to these questions are still impossible to answer because genetics is what makes all individuals unique, therefore making any attempts to have debates with them significant with many variables.
The best way scientists gain a good understanding of the genetic lottery is with identical twins with identical DNA. Studies have been done on identical twins to see if there are similarities and differences with these twins. The best answer comes from twins that were born identical and separated at birth. Twenty or thirty years down the road, they decide to meet each other and scientists are amazed at the studies they find and it’s quite interesting for those who follow an identical set of twins. Even though they didn’t grow up together, scientists still find that it’s so amazing how many similarities they have.
There is still the issue that upbringing, nurturing or lack of nurturing or certain talents have a critical effect. Scientists find that some traits can be tendencies and definitely need a certain amount of a different environment to support the child to grow. If one child is taller than the other twin and their diet wasn’t as good, they tend to be shorter than their identical sibling.
This is still being debated, however; there are many traits that show clear genetic ties, at least enough so kids can be sassy in front of their parents when they feel they are in a rebellious streak. You can’t get mad at your parents if you end up being too short for pro basketball because your parents were short. You might be too short but have other genetic abilities that are intertwined into your DNA and you can still succeed at being a great horse jockey or a great runner.
Physical fitness that will push someone into athletics is really both a combination of upbringing and genetics. Some athletes do inherit many physical gifts and different abilities. This is when you hear that someone is a natural at a sport they chose to play.
There are also different physical traits when it comes to strength and how well muscled out you are naturally. How your endurance responds and this is something that you were predisposed to inherit. If your father played sports and was all muscled out, chances are you will inherit the strong sinewy muscles your father had, even if you are a girl.
Some athletes use ACTN# which is a high-level protein that the elite athletes use. Muscle composition is one of the factors that separates the Olympic athletes from the weekend joggers. In addition, some don’t have to work hard for long, lean muscles because they were born with them and a doctor will notice when a child is as young as two months old that this child is composed of all muscle and will never have any fat. This child won’t have to work as hard because genetic makeup had a factor plus what mom ate during her pregnancy, in order to turn out this lean, mean muscle machine.
There are many variables in genetic effects with an athlete’s abilities and there are also just as many facts involved that are not clear to scientists yet. There are slow twitch muscle and fast twitch muscle that are important for athletes. Slow twitch is useful in various sports that use high power, like track, baseball, and football. Fast twitch muscle is good for endurance sports like long-distance running.
Genes can go way back and if your son gets up every morning since the age of 6 to eat, sleep and breathe a certain sport, then this will certainly help the progress. Anyone that dreams of becoming a professional athlete take years and years of training. If your parent was an athlete and you grow up in the environment and start your training at a young age, this child has the upper hand of the advantage.
This is still being debated as well because the influence of genetics versus the daily training still has not proven anything with DNA. The “Sports Gene” people think their child inherited still has not been proven versus the child who is working and training at a young age. People still believe some kids are natural and this includes horseback riding.
If neither one of your parents ever played pro sports, this doesn’t mean you will fail. You still have to try if you are interested in a sport and practice makes perfect.
There are many crazy things kids do inherit from their parents and some are very peculiar traits. Some people sneeze from the sight of the sun or from going into a room that is highly lit. This is called autosomal-Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome, which means ACHOO. Do you have any sun sneezing kids or are you one? Are you blaming this one on your parents because they have it too? About 57% of the population of patients in a hospital in Germany have this syndrome while being observed. This included the family involvement and they had the same reaction to the ACHOO syndrome. Therefore, they decide the sun syndrome of ACHOO could be traced back to the family tree.
Therefore, if you arise in the morning with mucus draining, you can blame this on genetic makeup.
Another issue of genetics is the picky eater and everyone has a favorite dish that mom makes, however; what if your mother decided to limit your tastebuds to bland food daily? One researcher says there is a genetically gifted group of people that live among us and are called supertasters. These people seem to have the ability to taste and smell a larger variety of food according to many of the average folk. This gift is thought to be genetic as well.
If you are one of these people, you would know it by now because your taste buds would be sensitive to hot foods, spicy foods, bitterness in veggies, sugar would be too sweet and spicy peppers could have your tongue submerged on ice cubes. Supertasters are born with totally different anatomy. All folks are born with fungiform papillae which are taste buds, but the supertasters have many more than the average person. This really is not uncommon and one in four Caucasians have the genetic makeup of a supertaster. Do people wonder if this is another way genetics work to see how people react to taste and smell? This all has something to do with the X and Y chromosomes. Genetic differences also play into the factor because women are said to smell and taste better than men. Women are aware of more smells than men to some degree.
The next time you don’t like a meal your parents made, you can always tell them that it’s not your fault you are a supertaster if things aren’t agreeing with you. It’s amazing to think about how your child is connected to you through this giant blueprint because this really can influence so much of who people related to you really are. When you decide to blame your parents for your faulty attributes, think about all the great qualities and genetics you did receive from your parents. Especially if you are blessed with good bone structure and youthful skin and hair.
