Social class and birth weight impact success in school

Apparently, it's not enough to have been just a beautiful baby; you also had to have been a big baby. And being born into upper-class surroundings doesn't hurt either.

A study of 10,845 44-year-olds from England, Scotland and Wales determined that there appeared to be a link between how big a person was when he or she was born and how well the child did in school.

According to the BBC, researchers found the people who did the best on test scores not only were big babies, but also were primarily from the upper classes of British society.

Scientists from the Institute of Child Health found that social class had even more of an effect on mental agility than childbirth size.

But don't think that birth weight didn't play an important factor. For example, men who weighed just under five pounds at birth scored eight percent below those who weighed about nine pounds when they were born.

-- Scott Roberts

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