This is the most detested sexual deviation and people have a strong aversion to pedophiles as they hit on the future generation. Convicted pedophiles have high recidivism rates. Some of the abusers turn into pedophiles because children are weaker and more pliable than adults.

A new study made by the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) points that height could signal a biological basis for pedophilia: pedophile men are shorter on average than non-pedophile men. The researchers presume that pedophiles may have experienced pre-birth conditions that impaired their physical development.

The height difference was determined from the data on over 1,000 men diagnosed for pedophilia or other sexual issues between 1995 and 2006 at the Kurt Freund Laboratory in Toronto, Canada. The same difference in average height has been also connected to other biological illnesses.

The average height difference was of 2 cm (0.8 in), just like in the case of schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease. The average Canadian man's height is 178 cm, while in the case of the pedophile subjects it reaches 176 cm. Further investigation is required, but this study strengthens the concept that pedophilia has a biological cause that could be linked to brain development in the womb.

"This research does not mean that pedophiles are not criminally responsible for their behavior but the discovery of biological markers for pedophilia has important implications for future study and possibly treatment." said lead researcher Dr. James Cantor, CAMH Psychologist.

Previous studies made by the same team discovered that pedophiles possess lower IQs, are three times more prone to left-handedness, to school failures and have experienced more head injuries during their childhood.

Most experts consider pedophilia to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Several previous studies have showed that pedophiles are very likely to have been victims of violence and sex abuse as children, in a victim-to-perpetrator cycle. Sometimes, the pedophile seeks rather to dominate than to establish a "genuine" relationship with a child; these ones feel strongly related with the thought patterns and lives of children, something fueled by a lack of education and self-esteem.

In cases of "emotional congruence", a man feels most comfortable and secure when he spends most of the time with children and may even act childish himself. Other pedophiles experience such deep-seated sexual anxieties that they cannot develop normal sexuality.

Pedophiles have been found to present different action patterns in the frontal lobe compared with normal men, a brain region critical for impulse control.

Genes causing brain defects render the individuals more prone to pedophilia. Researches found higher rates of pedophilia among some "pedophile" family members than among families of non-pedophiles.