Adverse Childhood Events and Adult Diseases

Many parents engage in behavior that is harmful to them but they refuse to change because they rebel at the idea that anybody should tell them to do anything. Even positive ideas about their own health turn them off. However, parents will often change their behavior if they are convinced that it is harmful to the Long term welfare of their children.

A few years ago medical researchers in California were trying to figure out why so many of their most successful weight loss clients were dropping out of the programs they entered to lose weight in the first place. Because they had a host of data about the clients' childhood they noted a remarkable correlation between Adverse Childhood Events and Adult obesity. Upon further research they saw an even more striking set of correlations between ACE and Adult Diseases of all sorts.

Perhaps most striking was the stair step correlations between the number of Adverse Childhood Events and the associated Adult Diseases. For example, if a child grew up without a parent in the home due to divorce, crime, death or prison time the child was likely to experience an adult disease. However, if there was alcoholism, drugs, jail time and divorce making the count be four of five Adverse Events the child would be more likely to experience several Adult diseases.

If you want to insure that your child has a healthy future be sure to stay married, stay sober and stay out of jail.