A healthy diet during pregnancy is very important in order to promote the welfare of the foetus, a unhealthy diet can bring a lot of problems to the mother and the foetus and can affect child development, for example a diet high in sugar can increase cholesterol and bring heart diseases, malnutrition can bring poor nutrition for the child and decrease life time. A healthy diet is full of fruit, vegetables, starchy foods, proteins, fibre and calcium is also important for the mother to avoid caffeine.
The environment inside the mother’s womb can indeed have a dramatic influence on the development of a child but environment influences such as where the child is raised can have a huge affect on a child development as well. Children of a low income tend to live in more polluted areas, where the air and the water are polluted, pollution can cause brain development in children as well lung diseases that can be development in childhood or can affect them later in life. One the factors that can have a huge impact on a child’s life is housing. Those on a low income are more likely to be living in poor housing conditions experiencing stress from overcrowding including noise, lack of privacy, having to wait to use facilities such as the toilets, poor heating and ventilation in winter, poor washing and cooking facilities, the house can have many hazards for a child due to architectural features, dampness, as well the neighbourhood cannot be safe or have poor facilities such as shops and parking. Poor housing is associated with poor health this is due of poor facilities and opportunities, children that grow up within poor housing are more likely to have diseases such as asthma and allergies.
Home is a place in which a child can development from a early stage until adulthood, is important to have a home environment for a child because it can affect all aspects of a child’s development such as; the development of the body, their social skills, their ability to control their feelings, their development of the mind and their speaking skills. A child development is encourages when the home provides many facilities and opportunities, these includes a place where a child can call his or her own and have some time to them self such as her/his own room, praise and encourage to carry on developing different skills, opportunities to play or read together with parents or guardian, opportunities to help so that the child can feel useful and wanted, also to have the opportunity to play with other children and to meet other people can help hr to develop many positive skills.
A child how is from a low income family as well can have less access to recreational facilities, because some activities depend on money such as leisure centres and gyms, also some low income family do not have access to a car and can live in area of difficult access to some activities which can make travel difficult as well lack of information less access to the newspaper and internet, time can be another problem because the parents or guardian have to work a lot. Less access to recreational facilities is another factor that can affect children’s development because the child will have less access to these amenities and less change to play with other children and develop some skills, such as to co- operate with other children and share as well it can affect self- confidence of the child.
Another factor that plays an important part on a child development is family; I could say this is the most important factor because a family is a social group of people who are related genetically or by marriage. Family is there to provide a person’s needs; these needs include food, water, warmth, shelter, love and companionship, clothing, ect. If these needs aren’t met, the person could end up seriously ill or they could grow up with behavioural problems. A family also provides experiences of social interaction, our first emotional attachment and relationship are formed through a family, for example breast feeding helps to form a bond between mother and her newborn baby, we also begin to learn about social roles and expected behaviour, a family influence our views, beliefs and culture, family also provides emotional support and financial help.
Family can play an important role on our development all these thing that I cited above are very important when a child is developing , because our family is our first interaction with the world, if a child who do not grow up in a well- functioning family it can delay her development and can bring many problems throughout her life, for example a child who grow up in a dysfunctional family are more likely to have health problems, be exposure to abuse, the child can have physiological problems, it can also affect her intellectual development, because it can be hard to do homework because the child lives in a overcrowd housing and have less facilities, and even later when the child becomes an adulthood she/ him cannot know how to provide the support needed for own child.
Another factor that can affect an individual’s life is education. Educational success is associated with better health. This can be explained because someone that have a higher income tends to follow a more healthier lifestyle, this means being able to afford more nutritious food as well able to afford better housing . Children from low- income households tend to leave full time education much earlier and with less formal qualifications that those from a higher income. This is due a child from a low- income household are more likely to be distracted with other things, such as, crime, which damages their future because they may end up getting criminal record, which only allows them to do certain jobs, which probably won’t play very well, it can be other things not only crime it can be due they turn to drugs or binge drinking, or they may remain unemployed because of discrimination and that can lead to depression. An individual from a low-income household can have less access to good schools and less access to materials as well the school can have only a limited number of staff.
References:
Book - Health and Social care level 3, book 1 BTCE National
Unknown. (2012). Healthy diet. Available: http://www.inhabitots.com/healthy-eating-during-pregnancy-3-helpful-books/. Last accessed 09th Nov 2012.
Unknown. (2012). Housing. Available: http://www.propertypal.com/property-news/northern-ireland-housing-executive-report-2011. Last accessed 09th Nov 2012.
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sherrylima (student)
