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Human physical appearance is the outward phenotype or look of human beings.
There are functionally infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces the variability to distinct categories. The physical appearance of humans, in particular those attributes which are regarded as important for physical attractiveness, are believed by anthropologists to affect the development of personality significantly and social relations. Many humans are acutely sensitive to their physical appearance. [1] Some differences in human appearance are genetic, others are the result of age, lifestyle or disease, and many are the result of personal adornment.
Some people have linked some differences with ethnicity, such as skeletal shape, prognathism or elongated stride. Different cultures place different degrees of emphasis on physical appearance and its importance to social status and other phenomena.
Various aspects are considered relevant to the physical appearance of humans.
Humans are distributed across the globe except for Antarctica and form a variable species. In adults, the average weight varies from around 40 kg (88 pounds) for the smallest and most lightly built tropical people to around 80 kg (176 pounds) for the heavier northern peoples. [2] Size also varies between the sexes, with the sexual dimorphism in humans being more pronounced than that of chimpanzees, but less than the dimorphism found in gorillas. [3] The colouration of skin, hair and eyes also varies considerably, with darker pigmentation dominating in tropical climates and lighter in polar regions.
Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and fine vellus hair. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types, and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial primarily composed of protein, notably alpha-keratin.
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affect the psyche adversely.
Human variability, or human variation, is the range of possible values for any characteristic, physical or mental, of human beings.
The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word race itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, ethnic group" during the 16th to 19th centuries. Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology through scientific racism starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."
Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic trait determined by two factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris.
Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many factors which influence one person's attraction to another, with physical aspects being one of them. Physical attraction itself includes universal perceptions common to all human cultures such as facial symmetry, sociocultural dependent attributes, and personal preferences unique to a particular individual.
The labia are the major externally visible structures of the vulva. In humans and other primates, there are two pairs of labia: the labia majora are large and thick folds of skin that cover the vulva's other parts, while the labia minora are the folds of skin between the outer labia that surround and protect the urethral and vaginal openings, as well as the glans clitoris.
Typology in anthropology was the categorization of the human species by races, based solely on traits that are readily observable from a distance such as head shape, skin color, hair form, body build, and stature. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropologists used a typological model to divide people from different ethnic regions into races,.
Human male sexuality encompasses a wide variety of feelings and behaviors. Men's feelings of attraction may be caused by various physical and social traits of their potential partner. Men's sexual behavior can be affected by many factors, including evolved predispositions, individual personality, upbringing, and culture. While most men are heterosexual, there are minorities of homosexual men and varying degrees of bisexual men.
Body hair or androgenic hair is terminal hair that develops on the human body during and after puberty. It is different from head hair and also from less visible vellus hair, which is much finer and lighter in color. Growth of androgenic hair is related to the level of androgens and the density of androgen receptors in the dermal papillae. Both must reach a threshold for the proliferation of hair follicle cells.
Human body shape is a complex phenomenon with sophisticated detail and function. The general shape or figure of a person is defined mainly by the molding of skeletal structures, as well as the distribution of muscles and fat. Skeletal structure grows and changes only up to the point at which a human reaches adulthood and remains essentially the same for the rest of their life. Growth is usually completed between the ages of 13 and 18, at which time the epiphyseal plates of long bones close, allowing no further growth.
Forensic art is any art used in law enforcement or legal proceedings. Forensic art is used to assist law enforcement with the visual aspects of a case, often using witness descriptions and video footage.
Sexual dimorphism describes the morphological, physiological, and behavioral differences between males and females of the same species. Most primates are sexually dimorphic for different biological characteristics, such as body size, canine tooth size, craniofacial structure, skeletal dimensions, pelage color and markings, and vocalization. However, such sex differences are primarily limited to the anthropoid primates; most of the strepsirrhine primates and tarsiers are monomorphic.
Sexual selection in humans concerns the concept of sexual selection, introduced by Charles Darwin as an element of his theory of natural selection, as it affects humans. Sexual selection is a biological way one sex chooses a mate for the best reproductive success. Most compete with others of the same sex for the best mate to contribute their genome for future generations. This has shaped human evolution for many years, but reasons why humans choose their mates are not fully understood. Sexual selection is quite different in non-human animals than humans as they feel more of the evolutionary pressures to reproduce and can easily reject a mate. The role of sexual selection in human evolution has not been firmly established although neoteny has been cited as being caused by human sexual selection. It has been suggested that sexual selection played a part in the evolution of the anatomically modern human brain, i.e. the structures responsible for social intelligence underwent positive selection as a sexual ornamentation to be used in courtship rather than for survival itself, and that it has developed in ways outlined by Ronald Fisher in the Fisherian runaway model. Fisher also stated that the development of sexual selection was "more favourable" in humans.
Mate preferences in humans refers to why one human chooses or chooses not to mate with another human and their reasoning why. Men and women have been observed having different criteria as what makes a good or ideal mate. A potential mate's socioeconomic status has also been seen important, especially in developing areas where social status is more emphasized.
The feminine beauty ideal is a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives and from a young age to increase their perceived physical attractiveness. It is experienced by many women in the world, though the traits change over time and vary in country and culture.
DNA phenotyping is the process of predicting an organism's phenotype using only genetic information collected from genotyping or DNA sequencing. This term, also known as molecular photofitting, is primarily used to refer to the prediction of a person's physical appearance and/or biogeographic ancestry for forensic purposes.
Neoteny is the retention of juvenile traits well into adulthood. In humans, this trend is greatly amplified, especially when compared to non-human primates. Neotenic features of the head include the globular skull; thinness of skull bones; the reduction of the brow ridge; the large brain; the flattened and broadened face; the hairless face; hair on the head; larger eyes; ear shape; small nose; small teeth; and the small maxilla and mandible.
The masculine beauty ideal is a set of cultural beauty standards for men which change based on the historical era and the geographic region. These standards are ingrained in men from a young age to increase their perceived physical attractiveness.
[Cases] of immigration have repeatedly shown that if a person who is obese believes that their body is beyond individual control but is placed into a medical system that assumes individual rational actors in its treatments, adherence is likely to be low and those treatments are ineffective...[Young] ethnic Fijian women associated the thin body ideal with a particular lifestyle that they found desirable