WATCH: New research suggests a link between preventing heart disease as an adult and having a positive childhood. Su-Ling Goh explains.
TORONTO – Our childhood experiences are tied to the way we build relationships later on in life and the development of our personalities. Now, a new study suggests that a positive upbringing also plays a pivotal role in our heart health in adulthood.
While plenty of research links genetics, weight and eating habits in youth to risk of obesity in the future, a new study warns that environment – a stable family life, for example – also plays a role.
“The choices parents make have a long-lasting effect on their children’s future health, and improvement in any one thing can have measureable benefits,” Dr. Laura Pulkki-Råback, the study’s senior author, said.
“For instance, if an unemployed parent gets steady employment, the effect may be huge. If he or she also quits smoking, the benefit is even greater. All efforts to improve family well-being are beneficial.”
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Pulkki-Råback is a research fellow at the University of Helsinki in Finland. There, researchers found that financial security, a stable emotional environment, and a household that practiced healthy habits were three psychological factors that helped children control aggressiveness and impulsiveness.
In their study, the Helsinki researchers started with 3,577 children between 3 and 18 years old in 1980. Twenty-seven years later in 2007, the scientists followed up with the group – 1,089 of them – as they were well into adulthood.
The kids’ socioeconomic status, emotional stability, parental health behaviors, and potential stressful events were documented. Parents were asked about how often the family moved houses, if the kids changed schools and if there was a death in the family.
Parents also had to measure how well their children could adapt to changes in their lives. The doctors also asked for a snapshot of the parents – education level, occupation, income, if they smoke or drank, for example.
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Turns out, kids with the positive, stable upbringings fared the best when it came to heart health in adulthood.
Fourteen per cent had a greater chance of being at a normal weight as an adult, 12 per cent had a greater chance of being a non-smoker and 11 per cent had healthy glucose levels.
The researchers say their findings point to more explanations – beyond genetics or eating habits – that foster good health as an adult. Stability, impulse control and adaptability are also important, they say.
Dr. Alexander Clark, a University of Alberta expert in heart disease, says the findings make sense.
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A child’s confidence, self-esteem and perception of control over their future can leave a lifelong imprint, he warns. That seeps into his or her willingness to take on challenges like exercise or problem-solving. A vulnerability or feeling of instability could also lead them to rely on alcohol, food or smoking as a coping mechanism.
Stress, depression or anxiety are also factors in heart health, he notes.
“The findings challenge health professionals to see the seeds of heart disease as being far more psychological and social than is often recognized and its roots being far more in childhood that has ever before been understood. Stressful life times for our kids can truly last a life time,” he wrote in an email to Global News.
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“Parents who take time with their kids to help them cope with moving house, divorce or changing skill are not just helping them adjust to that event, but potentially protecting from heart disease decades down the road. Powerful parenting indeed,” he said.
Pulkki-Råback’s full findings were published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
- With a file from Global’s Su-Ling Goh
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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