Community Corner

Resiliency in Impoverished Children Comes at a Cost

By April Sorrow

You’ve probably known, or known of, children who seem to have overcome the difficulties of poverty. They do well academically, have a wide circle of friends, and stay out of trouble—even if their home life is chaotic and filled with economic uncertainty.

These “resilient” children can overcome severe problems, but their resiliency comes at a great cost, according to UGA researchers.

Find out what's happening in Athenswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“Exposure to stress over time gets under the skin of children and adolescents, which makes them more vulnerable to disease later in life,” said Gene Brody, founder and director of the UGA Center for Family Research. “We honor people who beat the odds, but there’s a cost to doing that.”

Looking at a sample of 489 African-American youths from working poor families in south Georgia, Brody evaluated the overall poverty-related risks experienced by children annually at ages 11 to 13 as well as teacher-reported competence.

Find out what's happening in Athenswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Published in the May 30th issue of Psychological Science, the results found that kids who experienced high levels of stress and whose teachers evaluated them as performing well emotionally, academically and socially, when they were 11 to 13 years old, had a high allostatic load by the time they were 19.

Allostatic load is a measure of wear and tear on the body that includes stress hormones, blood pressure and body mass index. Stress hormones can compromise immune system functions and other bodily systems, potentially speeding up disease processes. A child under stress can end up with chronic diseases, like diabetes or hypertension, at a much younger age.

“We used to assume that cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer just happen to people as they get older,” Brody said. “But, we see the success-oriented, highly active, coping style increases the risk for these young adults for the chronic diseases of aging.”

The findings support the suggestion that poor health and health disparities during adulthood are tied to earlier experiences. Youths who don’t cope as well, have low self-esteem and struggle in school and with friends show elevated levels of stress hormones, blood pressure and body mass index, or BMI, as well. 

About 10 percent of the population surveyed in Brody’s research fell into this category. These health markers are risk factors for early onset diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension and cancer.

“For kids who are doing well and have outwardly beaten the odds, it is very important for them to be monitored and have yearly checkups so that if they have elevations in these risk factors, they can be attended to,” he said.

 A physician treating a resilient child should check in with that child as well as checking blood pressure and body weight. Brody says they should ask about how their friends are doing and help them develop a sense of balance “instead of having a single-minded focus on success. They need to not pursue success to the exclusion of everything else.”

Brody is now researching the impact of prevention programs on at-risk youth. Tianyi Yu, Edith Chen, Gregory Miller, Steven Kogan and Steven Beach co-authored the paper. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here