Research has recently shown that having malnutrition in the first years of life can lead to personality problems as an adult, even if the person gets a healthy diet soon afterwards. Adults who were previously malnourished tend to be more hostile, anxious, stressed, depressed, and angry than adults who always had enough food. They were also less social and weren't as motivated to achieve goals.
This study looked at 77 people who were admitted to a hospital at an early age for malnourishment. These patients then took place in a program to get them the right nutrition they needed. As adults these 77 people were compared to 57 people who had never suffered from malnourishment. Using a questionnaire, 1/3 of the previously malnourished scored high when measured for emotional distress, which was much more than the other group.
Though the people who conducted this study aren't sure exactly why this is so, there are some speculations. Malnutrition at a young age could alter brain growth that affects personality later in life. It could also be that the general distress of the malnourished children affected the parents and led them to raise them poorly.
NOS Themes:
Science is subject to debate and tentative: It is still not known exactly what causes the link between malnutrition and negative personality traits.
Science is based on evidence: Many people were involved with this study. The results also agree with findings from other studies that show increased schizophrenia and aggressive behavior in malnorished children
Interesting article! This goes to show that the first few years of your life are some of the most important if not the most important years. But, this study has a lot of lurking variables. As a generalization, children that are malnourished tend to have parents who are either poor and can't afford good food or they are not a big enough part of their childs early life (they are gone a lot and don't pay a lot of attention to the kid, so they don't notice when they should feed them). So, this article provides compelling evidence for it's case stated, but needs to be researched more to show definitive results.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have is:
Which part of developement happens in the first few years of life that becomes permanently altered once a child has been malnourished?
Here's an article for further research:
http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/23488644/Malnutrition_in_the_first_year_of_life_and_personality_at_age_40_
This is a pretty interesting article. I knew that malnutrition was obviously bad and would lead to poor health conditions, but I never knew that malnutrition as a child can affect that person as an adult even if they are maintaining a good diet.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22772085
I did further research regarding this topic and discovered this article about malnutrition and how it affects the future personality. Scientists tested adults with schizotypal personality disorder (developed by malnutrition) by looking at their childhood IQs. They realized that all of the IQs were low, and stated that malnutrition does affect both the childhood and the adult life.
I found this interesting as well. I found an article that showed a study of malnourised and underweight children in major east coast cities. Doctors at Boston Medical Center's Grow Clinic say these children are more vulnerable to sickness and will stay sick longer due to their poor diet. It also causes them to fall behind in school, even through high school. Like your article, the doctors also said it caused emotional problems later on.
ReplyDeletehttp://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/09/26/childhood-malnutrition-has-long-lasting-effects/
As well as malnutrition, there are other interesting things about nutrition that affect a person's personality. It was said in an article that when blood sugar levels fall, people become more aggressive, angry, and stressed. The lack of blood sugar causes the brain to release adrenaline, generally related to anger or hyperness.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.motleyhealth.com/diet-and-nutrition/diet-and-nutrition
This article may be somehow show a different way poverty influences crime. Maybe kids in poverty are more likely to commit crime because of malnourishment causing emotional distress.
ReplyDeleteI found your article to be very interesting, so I wanted to see what other causes childhood malnutrition has a long term effect on. I found this article, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100701131211.htm which discusses how childhood malnurishment weakens the brain as an elderly. Zhenmei Zhang, sociologist, and his colleagues examine data from over 15,000 elderly people who took part in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. The survey consisted of a screening test for cognitive impairment, measurements of arms and lower legs to indicate childhood malnutrition, and questions on childhood hunger. Of those who showed child malnourishment, women were 35% more likely to have cognitive impairment at age 65 or older and men 29% higher chance.
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