I have a question. My skin tone is light but the photographs of me as a baby show that when i was just born, i was having an even lighter skin colour for about two years or probably more. As for now my skin tone is not the same as before. Why does this change of skin tone happen in the first place? Also, is it possible to get back to that same skin tone as i was, when i was a baby? Also, another follow up question, talking on the matter of skin tone, there are alot of factors that come into picture to make the tone like the location and the amount of sun rays we recieve, beside obvious genetics. So i wanted to ask can a change of location from place of birth to another completely different location, (possibly other side of the globe) can bring about a change of tone? Thanks.
1 Answer
Skin color in humans is mainly determined by a pigment called Melanin. Melanin is produced by cells called melanocytes present in the epidermis of the skin. Melanin production rates are determined both by genetic and environmental factors. Melanin controls the amount of ultraviolet radiation (from the sun) that penetrates the skin and while UV radiation can assist in the production of vitamin D, excessive exposure to UV can damage health. This is why the amount of sunlight a person receives can control the amount of melanin that is produced in their body. Sun tanning occurs when a person receives more sunlight than they usually do, increasing the melanin content in their skin.
As Wikipedia quotes:
[skin] start[s] out pale in infants and turn darker as the skin is exposed to more sun. All human babies are born pale, regardless of what their adult color will be. In humans, melanin production does not peak until after puberty.
This is likely why your baby photos show you as pale-skinned.
As for your last question, while a change of location can obviously affect skin color (sun tanning is an example), it is also affected by genetics. If you change location while very young, there is a big chance that your adult skin color will be different than what is expected using genetics. As noted above, melanin production peaks at around age 30, so the location you were at age 30 would most likely affect your skin color. Again, slight variations such as tanning and becoming pale will be noticeable after a location change. However, this topic is very hard to study and there is not much evidence regarding my hypotheses. It is merely an educated guess that I took after studying present evidence.
I would recommend checking out the Wikipedia article to learn more about this.
