Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

Hunger is a part of everyday life.  I grew up with a childhood like "Leave It to Beaver."  My dad worked all day and my mom was a stay at home mom who make us breakfast, packed my school lunches, and make dinner every night.  There was very little stress in my life.  As I began my career in early childhood, I have seen many issues with children and their parents.  The first three years of life are the most important for brain and central nervous system development" (Sessoms, 2013).  Hunger can made a negative impact on a child's development mentally and physically.  The two children that I am thinking about had major hunger issues as they were abused.  The first child was a three year old foster child who was burned over the majority of her body and she wore a body suit especially made for burn victims.  Her foster parents told me that she did not have food to eat on a regular basis and when they had her,  she would always hide food in her clothes and room.  This was a survival technique she used in case she would not get anymore food.  "Children growing up in food-insecure families are vulnerable to poor health and stunted development from the earliest stages of life" (Hutchison, 2011).  The child was small for her age and did not have enough fat or muscle on her.  As a result of this, she was sick a lot because her body could not fight any illness she had.  Unfortunately, this child was only at my center for a year and I do not know what happened to her or how she is getting on in life.  Hunger causes emotional and behavior problems, limits social development, hinders physical development, causes children issues to adapting to environmental stress, and also effects the part of the brain that determines decision making.  The second child was also an abused child, but less abused than her older brother and sister.  She was a year old when she came to my center and was always hungry.  Even after she ate, she was still hungry.  She would eat so fast she would throw up and start eating again.  Sometimes it seemed like she did not chew.  Her coping technique was to eat everything fast in case someone took the food away from her or she may of felt like she was not going to get anymore food.  She did this until she was five years old.  Her foster parents ended up adopting her and kept in touch with me as my center played a big role in the first few years of her life.  She is now an overweight pre-teen who still eats fast.  

Hunger is a major issue is India.  "In the Indian providence of Madhyer Pradesh, 60 percent of children are malnourished-the highest percentage in the world" (Gordts, 2012).  Mothers are very young, uneducated, and give birth to underweight babies with weak immune systems.  These mothers do not breastfeed, feed their babies with buffalo milk, and use water that is contaminated.  The government has developed more that fifty programs targeting the the poor to alleviate poverty, which in turn could alleviate hunger.  They have also developed the National Food Security Act to provide food and nutritional security for the poor.  The problem is that many of these programs have corrupt people running them and the poor usually end up with nothing or contaminated foods.  They are now handing out wheat flour that is fortified with iron and micro-nutrients for warding off diseases such as anemia.   



Gordts, E. (2012, May).  India child hunger: 25 million children suffer from nutritional and starvation.  Huffington Post.  Retrieved from, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/india-child-hunger_n_1517098.html. 

Hutchison, E. (2013).  Affects of hunger: The brain. Retrieved from, http://www.30hourfamine.org/2011/11/affect-of-hunger-the-brain 

Sessoms, G. (2013, August).  How does hunger affect children.  Retrieved from, http://www.livestrong.com/article/242730-how-does-hunger-affect-children