Influences On Normal Physical Essay Research Paper

Influences On Normal Physical Essay, Research Paper

Physical growth in early childhood is partially easy to measure and

gives an idea of how children normally develop during this period. The

average child in North America is less than three feet tall at two years of

age. Physical growth contains no discrete stages, plateaus, or qualitative

changes. Large differences may develop between individual children and

among groups of children. Sometimes these differences affect the

psychological development of young children. These differences create a

nice variety among children.

Most dimensions of growth are influenced by the child’s genetic

background. Also, races and ethnic backgrounds around the world differ

in growth patterns. Nutrition can affect growth, but it does not override

genetic factors.

One factor in the cause of slow growth is malnutrition. Malnutrition

can start as early as pregnancy. Low birth weight babies have an

increased risk of infection and death during the first few weeks of life.

Food-deprived children carry a greater risk of neurological deficiencies

that result in poor vision, impaired educational attainment, and cerebral

problems. Such children are also more prone to diseases such as malaria,

respiratory tract infections or pneumonia. The illnesses of malnourished

children can cause more lasting damage than in a healthy child. The

destructive conjunction between low food intake and disease is magnified

at the level of the hungry child. There is evidence, according to The

Journal of Nutrition, that an estimated 50 percent of disease-related

mortality among infants could be avoided if infant malnutrition were

eradicated. It has also been shown that low birth- weight is associated

with increased prevalence of diseases such as stroke, heart disease and

diabetes in adult life. Most damage during the first few years of life

cannot easily be undone.

There are many reasons why some children never reach normal

height. Some causes of short stature are well understood and can be

corrected, but most are subjects of ongoing research. Achondroplasia is

the most common growth defect in which abnormal body proportions are

present. Achondroplasia is a genetic disorder of bone growth. It affects

about one in every 26,000 births. It occurs in all races and in both

sexes. It is one of the oldest recorded birth defects found as far back as

Egyptian art. A child with achondroplasia has a relatively normal torso

but short arms and legs. People sometimes think the child is mentally

retarded because they are slow to sit, stand, and walk alone. In most

cases, however, a child with achondroplasia has normal intelligence.

Children with achondroplasia occasionally die suddenly in infancy or early

childhood. These deaths usually occur during sleep and are thought to

result from compression of the upper end of the spinal cord, which can

interfere with breathing. This disease is caused by an abnormal gene.

The discovery of the gene allowed the development of highly accurate

prenatal tests that can diagnose or rule out achondroplasia. There is

currently no way to normalize skeletal development of children with

achondroplasia, so there is no cure. Growth hormone treatments, which

increase height in some forms of short stature, do not substantially

increase the height of children with achondroplasia. There is no way to

prevent the majority of cases of achondroplasia, since these births result

from totally unexpected gene mutations in unaffected parents.

One treatment available for children is known as growth hormone

therapy. The policy governing the use of growth hormone (GH) therapy

has shifted from treating only those children with classic growth hormone

deficiency to treating short children to improve their psycho social

functioning. This has caused quite a controversy. Parents have described

shorter boys as less socially competent and having more behavioral

problems than that of the normal sample. Shorter boys describe

themselves as less socially active but not having more behavioral