Poverty May Affect the Growth of Children's Brains

sciencehabit writes: Stark and rising inequality plagues many countries, including the United States, and politicians, economists, and — fortunately — scientists, are debating its causes and solutions. But inequality's effects may go beyond simple access to opportunity: a new study finds that family differences in income and education are directly correlated with brain size in developing children and adolescents. The findings could have important policy implications and provide new arguments for early antipoverty interventions, researchers say.

Comments

Re:Take a bus, sometimes

[manwargi]

In places like that there is an abundance of inexpensive garbage filled with very stimulating ingredients and an uphill battle towards the less available, more expensive, all-natural options. This is why there's a bizarre regulatory mess in South LA about curbing the number of fast food joints all packed into a concentrated area.

See in this video where the chef teaches some kids how to make home made breaded chicken breast, but they still find the McNugget more appealing. It reminds me of Dave Chappelle's old sketch about the rich kids having grape juice where he only knew "grape drink."

Root causes, poverty, smaller brains, etc

[Ada_Rules]

While there are almost certainly multiple factors at play (nutrition, environment, etc) it would be nice if we could all stop pretending to not understand one of the root causes of negative impacts on brain development - specifically spanking.

There are no studies that show spanking has any long term positive outcomes. There are plenty of studies that show negative correlation with long term negative outcomes. Just as is the case with this study, it is fair to call into question correlation and causation but if there were some food additive, fertilizer or herbicide that had even 1/10 of the correlative impact on children, the public would be freaking out and protesting around some multinational business but when it is parents damaging their own children we get relative silence.

Studies have shown that poor parents are more likely to spank their children. Studies have shown a correlation in spanking with smaller brain sizes, lower IQs, lack of self control. Studies have shown a high correlation between lack of self control and poverty. Again we don't have great data on cause v.s. effect but there are good indications that the early violence is causative in this chain.

Re:Take a bus, sometimes

[gl4ss]

was it like that when growing up?
also, what about the parents brain size?

what kind of poverty are we talking here anyhow? if you have money to feed your kids with overpriced flavored ice just wtf kind of poverty is that compared to europe directly after and during ww2?+??

or is it that if the parents constantly tell their kids that they are poor, then their brains don't grow?