As parents, we tend to hope our children will be attractive and don’t inherit grandad's roman nose, Uncle Jim's crooked teeth, or our pale skin. Turns out there may be an intuitive reason why! 

Researchers analysed the relationship between attractiveness and mortality using a sample of high school graduates from Wisconsin with a measure of facial attractiveness from yearbook photographs and 65 years of high-quality follow-up information on mortality. Broadly, researchers found that those whose facial attractiveness was rated in the least attractive sextile had a higher mortality risk throughout life compared to those rated average or high. The least attractive men lived almost 1 year less than their high school classmates and the least attractive women lived on average 2 years less than their more attractive classmates.  - www.sciencedirect.com