Poverty and associated food insecurity throughout low income families is an ongoing pandemic that affects millions of people around the globe. According to Raphel (2013), 50 million Americans live in food insecure homes and 16.7 million of those people are children. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated that poverty and low socioeconomic status are one of the largest threats to a child’s health, damaging cognitive development in terms of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical problems. These issues are invisible to many people and often go unnoticed despite occurring in every county nationwide. In recent years, U.S. Congress have passed legislation for various programs to aid in the effort of diminishing the severity of these
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The family stress theory assists in understanding how factors such as poverty, parenting, and child outcomes may be related (McCurdy, Gorman, & Metallinos-Katsaras, 2010) in order to develop lasting and effective intervention programs. Factors such as low income, underemployment, and low wage jobs cause parents to struggle and create heightened stress. The increasingly high economic stress of struggling to provide for themselves and their children leads to a decrease in parents’ mental health and change in their parenting behavior. Poor child outcomes are the result of a less responsive and competent parent-child relationship which is caused by the emotional change in parenting …show more content…
Generally speaking, physical activity helps with the prevention of diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and coronary heart disease. Recent studies have found that physical activity has been associated with enhanced cognitive function and an improved academic performance (Chaddock-Heyman, Hillman, Cohen, & Kramer, 2014). It is crucial to understand the link between physical activity and cognitive functioning because physical activity is decreasing in and out of schools. Children are living more sedentary lifestyles and becoming unfit and overweight in all socioeconomic status but the effects are more easily observed in low-income families and
The family stress theory assists in understanding how factors such as poverty, parenting, and child outcomes may be related (McCurdy, Gorman, & Metallinos-Katsaras, 2010) in order to develop lasting and effective intervention programs. Factors such as low income, underemployment, and low wage jobs cause parents to struggle and create heightened stress. The increasingly high economic stress of struggling to provide for themselves and their children leads to a decrease in parents’ mental health and change in their parenting behavior. Poor child outcomes are the result of a less responsive and competent parent-child relationship which is caused by the emotional change in parenting …show more content…
Generally speaking, physical activity helps with the prevention of diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and coronary heart disease. Recent studies have found that physical activity has been associated with enhanced cognitive function and an improved academic performance (Chaddock-Heyman, Hillman, Cohen, & Kramer, 2014). It is crucial to understand the link between physical activity and cognitive functioning because physical activity is decreasing in and out of schools. Children are living more sedentary lifestyles and becoming unfit and overweight in all socioeconomic status but the effects are more easily observed in low-income families and