Research finds health cost for motivated, disadvantaged youth
*There’s a paradox, that education and income are good for your health, but the stress of getting them is detrimental throughout life. The paradox, studies say, is more pronounced in disadvantaged youth. Think young Latin@s, striving and stressing over upward mobility. My question, though, is that the study doesn’t take family support networks into account. In the Latino community, you must. VL
By Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education
Athens, Ga. – There may be a hidden cost to the old adage of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps: Research out of the University of Georgia suggests the unintended stress spurred by upward mobility can pose an unintended health risk later down the road.
Previous studies have shown the negative health effect that stress can cause, particularly on people coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. But this study specified the approach and narrowed it down to just look at the effect on “future oriented” adolescents who strive to break the cycle and earn higher levels of education and income.
Researchers in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences, including professor
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K.A.S. Wickrama, assistant research scientist Catherine O’Neal and graduate student Tae Kyoung Lee, combed through a 13-year national study that contained clinical health data from over 11,000 participants as they aged into adulthood.
They found that young adults who come from adverse backgrounds—but also show resilience to break that pattern and achieve a higher social status—are more likely to be unhealthy later in life than . . . READ MORE
[Phtoto by KMo Foto/Flickr]
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