...Influences of Childhood Development La Tesha Simpson PSY/600 Developmental Psychology July 15, 2013 Judy Pendleton, PsyD Influences of Childhood Development Children are impressionable and share the characteristics of a sponge in a sense, by means of picking up a spill and letting it ooze out of their personality or behavior. Children imitate most of what they see and hear whether negative or positive. Imitating is learning and learning is form of development. Everyone and everything can influence the choices children make during childhood. The purpose of this paper is to investigate influences of childhood development. Development of any kind during childhood can have life altering factors. Some of those factors will include career development starting during early childhood, economic resources in child development, and socioeconomic status and child development. This investigation will demonstrate whether the influences are healthy or unhealthy development during childhood. Career Development during Childhood Parents and professional role models may influence children in their career choice. For example, if a parent is a doctor a child may find that exciting and want to follow the footsteps of the parent. Perhaps, the child learns how police officers and fire fighters give back to the community and want to do the same. Career development start during childhood and covers the course of life (Porfeli & Lee, 2012). Researchers show how an individual establishes...
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...Epidemiology Paper on Childhood Obesity Obesity is a global epidemic affecting millions of the world population. Childhood obesity is especially worrisome as it is linked to higher incidence of health issues in adulthood (Lakshman, Elks, & Ong, 2012). There are many factors to look at when assessing the prevalence of childhood obesity, including culture, socio-economic status, food availability, activity, and genetics. To better understand this problem, it is essential to understand the factors that lead to obesity, how obesity is studied, and what are ways to help reduce the occurrence of obesity. Through epidemiology, this health concern can be better understood and provide the information needed to generate a plan of action to help reduce the risk factors that lead to childhood obesity. Epidemiology is “the study of the occurrence and distribution of health–related states or events and specified populations, including the study of the determinants influencing such states, and the application of this knowledge to control the health problems” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012, pg 255). Through epidemiology the questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why can be investigated to offer information about the dissemination or patterns of health measures. The Epidemiological Triangle allows epidemiologists to understand the relationships between agent, host, and the environment when looking at a specific health concern. When considering childhood obesity, the agent could be viewed...
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...Socioeconomic status (SES) affects the personalities, parent to child interactions, and learning capabilities of children. Generally, it is measured based upon education, income, place of residence, and occupation of the individual. Many research studies have found a direct correlation between the development of a child and the socioeconomic status of their family. The way in which socioeconomic status is measured determines whether someone is from a low or high SES family. Childhood development starts at around 2 years old and ends at about 11 years old. According to Jean Piaget, child psychologist, childhood development consists of the preoperational and concrete operational stages. The preoperational stage is when children are engaged in...
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...The New England Journal of Medicine: Incidence of Childhood Obesity in the United States General Summary: Childhood Obesity is a growing epidemic in the United States. Prevalence data has been documented; however, gaps in the incidence study still exist. Thus, a study was conducted on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in order to track the incidence of obesity. The National Center for Educational Statistics selected a nationally representative cohort using probability sampling. Children who were starting kindergarten in the fall semester of 1998 were followed up until they reached the eight grade for data collection; cumulative incidence shows the 9-year risk of obesity. Variables were selected such as height, weight, parent-reported age, sex, race, ethnic group, socioeconomic status, and birth weight. Study showed that although the prevalence of obesity increased with age, incident obesity was highest at the youngest ages and declined through eighth grade. The lowest cumulative incidence according to socioeconomic factors was among children from wealthy families and the highest was among children from the middle socioeconomic quintile. Importance of Article: Childhood Obesity is an important concern for the community and this article does a great job detailing why. Childhood Obesity affects more than 30 percent of children, making it the most common chronic disorder for children. Today, more and more children are being diagnosed with diabetes...
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...rather than “health care” to refer to clinical services, to avoid potential confusion between “health” and “health care.” The World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health has defined SDH as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age” and “the fundamental drivers of these conditions.” The term “social determinants” often evokes factors such as health-related features of neighborhoods (e.g., walkability, recreational areas, and accessibility of healthful foods), which can influence health-related behaviors. Evidence has accumulated, however, pointing to socioeconomic factors such as income, wealth, and education as the fundamental causes of a wide range of health outcomes. This article broadly reviews some of the knowledge accumulated to date that highlights the importance of social—and particularly socioeconomic— factors in shaping health, and plausible pathways and biological mechanisms that may explain their effects. We also discuss challenges to advancing this knowledge and how they might be overcome. University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center on Social Disparities in Health, San Francisco, CA a University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center for Health and Community, San...
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...Main Point Article Summary One In childhood and adolescent obesity, which is defined as body mass index at or above...
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...Socioeconomic inequalities in the Health and Nutrition of Children in Low/Middle Income Countries: Discussion Summary Antonio Taylor Stratford University HCA 505: Global Health Professor Ostrander January 27, 2016 Socioeconomic Inequalities in the Health and Nutrition of Children in Low/Middle income Countries: Discussion Summary Introduction Child malnutrition remains one of the world’s most fundamental challenges for improved human development. Because the time and capacities of caregivers are limited, there are too many children in the world that are unable to access and effectively use at all times the food and healthcare services they need for a healthy life. Hundreds of millions of children in less developed countries suffer from poor health can nutrition. Children in most less developed countries also complete far few years of schooling, and learn less per year in schooling, than their counterparts in developed countries. Recent research has shown that poor health and nutrition among children reduces their time in school and their learning during that time. Background There is a long standing tradition of research on socio-economic health inequalities in contemporary high income countries. Early studies in the socioeconomic inequalities were often done by physicians engaged in social movements, who focused on the influence of living conditions on health. Attention for socio-economic health inequalities have been changing since the 19th century. At...
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...In the United States, childhood obesity has been rising rapidly across all population groups. However, research has shown that the rates are higher among those of a lower socioeconomic status and/or racial/ethnic minority group (Yi et al., 2008). This leads not only to health problems both early and later on in life, but also to certain psychological implications. Both outcomes will be examined in relation to socioeconomic status and race – specifically among African-Americans of a lower socioeconomic status. The Black Belt region, also known as the BBR, is a crescent-shaped area stretching from south-west Tennessee through Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, where a high percentage of low-income rural African American population resides and socioeconomic disparities are rampant (Terance L. Winemiller, Encyclopedia of Alabama). African-American families have the greatest risk of becoming overweight and obese, and adolescents from lower-income families have a higher risk for obesity than those from higher-income families due to lack of both access to affordable healthy foods and safe areas to exercise. () According to the article, Childhood obesity and community food environments in Alabama’s Black Belt region, in Alabama,...
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...in Childhood Obesity Abstract Many early life risk factors for childhood obesity are more prevalent among blacks and Hispanics than among whites and may explain the higher prevalence of obesity among racial/ethnic minority children. Eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care is a national priority, and obesity is a prime target. During the last 30 years in the United States, the prevalence of obesity among children has dramatically increased, sparing no age group. Obesity in childhood is associated with adverse cardio-metabolic outcomes such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type II diabetes and with other long-term adverse outcomes, including both physical and psychosocial consequences. By the preschool years, racial/ethnic disparities in obesity prevalence are already present, suggesting that disparities in childhood obesity prevalence have their origins in the earliest stages of life. Several risk factors during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of offspring obesity, including excessive maternal gestational weight gain, gestational diabetes, and smoking during pregnancy, antenatal depression, and biological stress. During infancy and early childhood, rapid infant weight gain, infant feeding practices, sleep duration, child’s diet, physical activity, and sedentary practices are associated with the development of obesity. Studies have found substantial racial/ethnic differences in many of these early life risk factors for childhood obesity...
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...Annotated Bibliography Cynthia Beckner South University Online PSY2002: April 30, 2013 Topic 1: Early Childhood: 1). Linda Knight (2009). Dreaming of other spaces: What do we think about when we draw? The Psychology of Education Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, March 2009 The article focuses on the enhancement of the learning process during early childhood development by the engagement of adults with children as they draw, and the interpretations of these drawings. By being engaged with young children as they express themselves on paper, allows the visualization of the child’s “thought” process as they are drawing. Along with the many applications of childhood developmental theories, the interpretation of a young child’s doodling is now perceived through Deleuzians and Guattarians dreaming concepts and Foucauldians heterotopic space concepts (Knight, 2009). Foucault’s concept of heterotopic space suggests that the young drawer visits his own imaginary space while doodling. This is a place where the child is free to imagine, free to choose, and free to express. Deleuzian’s and Guattarian’s concept suggests the child be free to be chaotic and unpredictable. Being able to dream allows the child to disconnect from the work and make his own connections. Examining and interacting with a child and his artwork can give us insight to emotional, cognitive, and physical development to the child. To a small child, scribbling can aid in muscle coordination, emotional release and...
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...overweight and obesity, differences in socioeconomic status potentially result in differential access to financial resources for purchasing nutritious foods and even health promotion amenities such as gyms, which, in turn, influences socioeconomic differences in overweight and obesity. Social selection theory has been put forward as another explanation of health disparities including those related to socioeconomic status. Part of the theory is premised on the tendency of people with similar characteristics to form clusters (Arcaya et al, 2015). An example is where individuals with propensity to engage in physical exercises may tend to move to safer suburbs that provide opportunities for walking or jogging, and hence people in those particular...
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...American male juveniles, found that arrests relating to violent crimes were related to the over-exposure to early childhood risk factors for crime and recidivism, such as poor academic performance in school,...
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...Is intelligence associated with health and longevity and if so, why? Discuss with reference to relevant empirical studies. Associations between measures of socioeconomic status (SES), health and survival rates have been firmly established by social epidemiologists. Nevertheless, in spite of improving western living conditions and wide access to health services and information, social inequalities in health and mortality still prevail. In some instances, wide accessibility to health care appears only to deepen socioeconomic divisions of health and mortality rates (Gottfredson, 2004). Why this should be the case has led researchers to seek out further predictors of morbidity and mortality across the social spectrum. From these efforts a new field of study, cognitive epidemiology (Deary & Der 2005) is seeking to establish general intelligence scores as risk factors for mortality and certain health outcomes. This is a comparatively new field of research, and findings with regard to the extent and exact causal mechanisms of an association between intelligence, health and longevity remain far from conclusive. For instance, some researchers claim that intelligence is the ‘elusive fundamental cause’ of health inequalities (Gottfredson, 2004); whilst others negate the impact of intelligence once SES factors and education are controlled for (Singh-Manoux & Kivimaki, 2009; Hauser & Palloni, 2008). Intelligence tests are long established as valid predictors of occupational...
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...The Relationship between Obesity and Poverty Obesity in the United States and similar societies is a socioeconomic problem. Obesity is defined as an abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to one’s health. The energy intake coming from food is stored as fat since the body does not use it. This ultimately impacts one’s physical health that many degenerative diseases are directly and indirectly linked to obesity. Throughout the history of obesity, its reputation varies from appreciation and the opposite among cultures over time. For instance, Ancient Egyptians are said to consider obesity as a disease, having been drawn in a wall of depicted illnesses. The Aztecs believed that obesity was supernatural, an affliction of the gods. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was aware of sudden deaths being more common among obese men than lean ones as stated in his writings. In certain cultures and areas where food is scarce and poverty is prevalent, obesity is viewed as a symbol of wealth and social status. Throughout the history of obesity, the public’s view and status of obesity started to considerably change in the 1900’s. During this time the government started to become more involved by initiating campaigns against the problem and publishing ideal weights for various heights. In 1996, the Body Mass Index (BMI) was published, which was a statistical calculation and index to determine if a person is obese or not. In the 21st century, obesity is considered an epidemic...
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...assist in the planning and evaluation of health policies and programmes. Estimates of infant and child mortality rates can be used to develop population projections. Information on childhood mortality also serves the need of the health sector to identify population groups that are at high risk. One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to reduce the under-5 mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Results from the 2011 UDHS can be used to monitor the impact of major interventions, strategies, and policies at the national level. Policies that affect the under 5 mortality rate are the National Health Policy (NHP II 2010/19) and the Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan (HSSIP 2010/11-2014/15). The data used to estimate mortality were collected in the birth history section of the Woman’s Questionnaire. The birth history section begins with questions about the respondent’s experience with childbearing (i.e., the number of sons and daughters who live with the mother, the number who live elsewhere, and the number who have died). These questions are followed by a retrospective birth history, in which each respondent is asked to list each of her births, starting with the first birth. For each birth, data are obtained on sex, month and year of birth, survivorship status, and current age or, if the child is dead, age at death. This information is used to directly estimate mortality rates. In this report age-specific mortality rates are categorised...
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