Why are there different bodytypes for example (musclar or tall and thinner) and not an ideal bodytype, that everyone has?
In: Biology
You are thinking that for a species that it would be better to have a group of identically perfect individuals. But everything about nature contradicts that.
Species that have thrived have done so through diversity. Diversity has given life the means to survive through some of the most drastic changes in our environment.
That is why, dispite creating more problems than solving them, genetic mutation is literally encouraged to constantly happen in any genome.
Let’s make an example of diversity for survival in the modern world. There is group that has the ideal body type, supposedly more higher metabolism, healthy, stronger, and attractive. Then a more obese type where everyone in the group is chubbier with a lower metabolism, less attractive in the eyes of society.
Now let’s drastically change the environment so that we suddenly have little to no food and have to withstand days to weeks until we can have our next meal. The ideal type with higher metabolism would die out rapidly, and the obese group would prosper.
I hope this gives you a better perspective of the matter
Evolution made the human species adaptive to different possibilities. More food, less food, hot weather cold weather, war, peace, etc. By having all kinds of humans, we were able to adapt to many different places and situations over a long period of time. If we only had huge humans, they may have died out in periods of not enough food. If we had only weak, brainy humans, they may not have been physically tough enough to handle predators. Some of it is also random genes. A trait that is useful in one situation may fail miserably in another. Remember that evolution is not progressive. We are not leveling up to some perfect point. We have traits and variations that worked for some of our ancestors, and also some random traits.
Humans have developed brains. As such, we’re able to work on ways to maintain our health under austere conditions. We’re also able to work on methods to achieve goals as a collective. As such, even if your body type isn’t suited for a particular activity to further the collective, there may be other activities that you are capable of doing where your body type isn’t a factor when success is concerned.
Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
DNA has little chunks called genes that give the body specific instructions on how to grow. There are 700 genes contributing to height alone. These genes get mixed up during reproduction, and with 700 genes there are going to be a lot of possibilities for height. Think about how unique eye color is–there are only 16 different genes that control for eye color. And then consider what else can contribute to body type–being raised with more or less access to food, or current lifestyle. When you see how many things can work together to make just one, unique body type, you see that it would be impossible for us all to be exactly the same.
If you think about it, we all kind of do have an “ideal bodytype”, that in the grand scheme of things is remarkable. There are one trillion species on earth, from bacteria, to trees, to elephants. Grab me a few million organisms at random from the world and tell me how many stand on two feet, with ten fingers and ten toes, and with two eyes facing forward on the front of our head, give or take for some anomalies (hint: the percentage is so small it’s hardly worth mentioning). The human body type is incredibly specific, in fact, it sets us apart from 1 trillion other species.
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