“A child's adult height is primarily inherited from the father rather than the mother.”

Here, we carried out genome-wide linkage analysis for loci influencing adult height in the Framingham Heart Study subjects using variance components while allowing for imprinting effects... We computed five different likelihoods on our pedigree data... Height is dependent on gender, decade-of-birth, and age as follows: β_gender = -5.40, β_decade-of-birth = 0.045, and β_age = -0.01, with R^2 = 0.5521. Gender and decade-of-birth effects are significant at the 0.01 level.

Scientists estimate that about 80 percent of an individual's height is determined by the DNA sequence variations they have inherited, but which genes these changes are in and what they do to affect height are only partially understood. For most individuals, though, height is controlled largely by a combination of genetic variants that each have more modest effects on height, plus a smaller contribution from environmental factors (such as nutrition). The inheritance of these variants from one’s parents helps explain why children usually grow to be approximately as tall as their parents, but different combinations of variants can cause siblings to be of different heights.

Genetic factors explain a major proportion of human height variation... Parental education mostly showed a positive association with offspring height... Our large twin study pooling data for 65,978 complete twin pairs from 29 cohorts from 15 countries established that for human height there is a high and consistent heritability across parental education levels. The same result, i.e. similar genetic and environmental variances of height across parental education levels, was found in different geographic-cultural regions having different mean stature.

By analyzing data from nearly 5.4 million people, Broad researchers have identified more than 12,000 genetic variants that influence height. These variants explain 10 to 40 percent of all variation in height depending on a person’s ancestry... Together, the SNPs account for 40 percent of all variation in height for individuals of European ancestry, and 10-20 percent of variation for people of non-European ancestry. This difference is due to the composition of the GIANT study cohort, which is mostly of European ancestry.

Maternal height was positively associated with all offspring height measures. The correlations between maternal height and offspring length/height measures at various ages ranged from 0.15-0.55 (all P < .001). In models that used conditional offspring height measures, a 1-cm increase in maternal height was associated with 0.037 (95% CI: 0.033-0.040), 0.025 (95% CI: 0.021-0.029), and 0.044 (95% CI: 0.040-0.048) SD unit increases in offspring conditional height at 2 years, MC, and adulthood, respectively.

The mean height of mothers in group 1 (genetic short stature; mean +/- SD, 157.7 +/- 6.8 cm) was less than the mean height of mothers in either group 2 (mean +/- SD, 161.1 +/- 6.9 cm) or group 3 (mean +/- SD, 162.5 +/- 6.6 cm). In contrast, the mean heights of fathers were not significantly different (F = 2.13) among the three groups (mean +/- SD, 173.3 +/- 7.5, 173.8 +/- 8.3, and 176.0 +/- 9.6 cm). Thus, a significant shift to greater shortness in mothers' heights than in fathers' heights for the parents of children with genetic short stature was noted.

Height GWAS have identified thousands of loci, but the genetic architecture is similar across ancestries with no significant parent-of-origin effects detected in large-scale studies... Both maternal and paternal genetic contributions are equally important in polygenic traits like height.

Using 416 SNPs associated with adult height attainment in a recent GWAS of more than 250,000 subjects, we constructed a polygenic height score that was significantly associated with both adult height and osteosarcoma risk... Our results indicate that a genetic predisposition to taller stature is a risk factor for osteosarcoma.

But there are ways of making a guess for child growth. For instance: Add the mother's height to the father's height in either inches or centimeters. Add 5 inches (13 centimeters) for boys or subtract 5 inches (13 centimeters) for girls, then divide by 2.

Scientists estimate that about 80 % of an individual's height is determined by the DNA sequence variations they have inherited... Together, the SNPs account for 40 % of all variation in height for individuals of European ancestry, and 10-20 % of variation for people of non-European ancestry.

Geneticists have used a method called Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) to find variants associated with a particular trait. Rather than looking at a single gene, GWAS scans the entire human DNA sequence to see which variants are statistically linked with height differences. Luckily, height is one of the most studied human traits using GWAS, and we have discovered thousands of genetic variants that are associated with height.

The height a person reaches by adulthood can depend on the genes they inherit from their biological parents, although some factors may mean a child is much taller or shorter than average. Height is determined by genetics and nutrition.

Scientific consensus from twin and family studies indicates that height is polygenic with heritability of 80%, inherited equally from both parents via autosomal genes. No large-scale GWAS or heritability studies support primary inheritance from the father; parent-of-origin effects are minimal and not sex-specific for height.

Some studies suggest that genetics contributes 60%-80%. Normally, a child's height is based on parental heights subject to regression toward the mean. Height, for better or for worse, is largely (60-80%) determined by genetics. As mentioned above, very tall parents are more likely to have a taller child, while very short parents are more likely to have a shorter child.