Growing up in poverty can have serious and long-lasting effects on children’s health, development, and overall well-being. The effects of poverty have a well-documented impact on young children’s developing brains. And children who grow up in poverty are more likely to experience harmful levels of stress, more likely to struggle in school, and more likely to have behavioral, social, and emotional problems than their peers. Below is a video (The Line) documenting some of the struggles people living at poverty level. Also, there are some articles I have included detailing the serious and long-lasting effects of poverty on children. You are all young adults now so the path you choose from here on out is mostly on you, but someday you will be moms or dads and your social stratifications as a parent will have a direct bearing on your children.The Line is a documentary about people living at the poverty line. It highlights the difficulties of different people who share a common struggle: life in poverty.
What I want you to see are the effects of poverty on individuals:
Physical Health (Here is a comprehensive list of research on health effects of poverty):
- a lower class person has a higher chance of dying at any age than a wealthy person! Some other health outcomes for those in poverty:
From the American Journal of Pediatrics; Poverty and lack of nurturing in early life may have a direct effect on a child’s brain development, according to a study that found smaller brain volumes in poor, neglected children.
Impoverished black children, for example, are twice as likely as poor Hispanic or white children to have levels of lead in their blood that is at least 2.5 micrograms per deciliter. Some researchers have found that even that small amount of lead is enough to cause cognitive impairment in children — especially the kind that impacts their reading ability.
Environment: the poor are more likely to experience asthma and other health issues;
...poor black children are more likely than poor white or Hispanic children to be diagnosed with asthma — another ailment that plagues poor children in Jacksonville and one that is linked to living in older, more industrialized areas.Poor white children, though, are more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, or to be born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy than poor black or Hispanic children.And poor Hispanic children, it found, are twice as likely to have no place to go for health care, as compared to poor white or black children.
Lifestyle = less access to healthy food (i.e. fruits and vegetables); see this link for a TED talk about one man who is arrested for planting a vegetable garden in a poor neighborhood!, smoke, Drug use and abuse, exercise less,
One reason may be that violence tracks with poverty, thereby preventing people from being active out-of-doors. Similarly, parks and sports facilities are less available to people living in poor counties (5), and people who live in poverty-dense regions may be less able to afford gym membership, sports clothing, and/or exercise equipment. There are multiple individual and environmental reasons to explain why poverty-dense counties may be more sedentary and bear greater obesity burdens.Medical Care = less access and poorer hospitals, lack of health insurance.
Mental Health = higher stress, children feel effects of stress for life.
Some sociologists will argue that there is a culture of poverty among those in the lowest income levels. This culture of poverty represents individuals making choices that create or worsen the impoverished situation they are in. So the theory goes that by spending your life deprived of money, opportunity, adequate food, etc., one will resort to learned helplessness. Basically, I give up, there is no way out type of thinking. And with lack of resources and help people in general feel they are "stuck." So people see the future as the same or even worse. So I guess I am saying that poverty influences attitude and behavior, therefore promoting the same attitude and behavior or even worse.
So I would call it a vicious spiral.
And it is important to note that 20% of the children in the US are growing up in poverty! That's 1 out of every 5 kids in the United States is living at the poverty level! Yes you read that correctly - 1 out of every 5 children in the United States is living in poverty right now! That's a higher rate than 34 out of 35 Western countries. So many of these children will not have the help or resources to improve their class mobility. So what can be done?
So I want you to create a blog titled "Poverty in the United States." I want you to set it up just like I did above. I want you to find articles or websites (not mine) for each of the five black boldfaced words (Mental Health, Medical Care, Lifestyle, Environment, Physical Health) that tie poverty to
children's health, development and overall well-being. And don't forget to give a summary of each-(I did not do that). Finally comment on the culture of poverty theory including your overall thoughts on all of this.
