Parenting Kids to Health and Happiness

According to this research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission, children’s health as a kid and as an adult is dependent on factors including family income, education of parents as well as the place where the children live. No wonder, there is a huge difference between the health of children coming from middle-class families and those belonging to rich or well-off families.

The survey provides sufficient evidence of a direct relationship between parents’ socio-economic status and children’s health. Low parental socio-economic status is more likely to result in poor health of the child which might lead to low education as well as socio-economic status of the child in the coming years.

The relationship between the poor health of children and the low socio-economic status of their parents can be traced back to a number of factors. Rich parents are more likely to provide their kids with better health inputs in a more productive manner. So, it makes sense that educated and well-off parents can provide their kids with all the amenities required for a healthy childhood free from all ills.

Education, they say, can be a panacea for many, if not all, ills. An educated parent can take wise decisions for securing his child’s future while providing him with all the good things needed for growing up to be a healthy adolescent.

Children growing up in a home with a high school graduate are more likely to enjoy optimal health than those without a high school graduate. So, a parents’ education level appears to have a direct bearing on the child’s health in later years.

In the words of Sue Egerter, co-director of the University of California, San Francisco, Center on Social Disparities in Health, “Children need the right physical and social conditions to help them become healthy kids who develop into healthy adults. Focusing on health care and coverage is important, but we need to recognize that there is more to health than health care.”