
Does growing up poor harm brain development? - johnny313
https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21741586-team-scientists-undertakes-ambitious-experiment-which-could-change-thinking-about
======
Antimachides
Half my childhood I grew up in poor conditions. The stress of everything just
drenches you. People traumatizing each other, young and old, in their stress
and grief. The poor dull each other. Dulled minds are handed down. Poverty is
not just economic fact, it is a state of mind.

~~~
tomp
Did you escape? If yes, how?

~~~
chaosbutters
The typical answers are: education, military, sports, entertainment. You
either need to work hard in education or go join the military and survive or
be naturally gifted in sports/music.

~~~
empath75
All the people I know who have been successful in music worked their asses off
at it. It takes a special kind of personality to practice by yourself for
hours and hours in search for perfection while still having he ability to
connect with other people emotionally.

~~~
erikpukinskis
That’s interesting, I had never considered the contradiction in that.

------
plurgid
An interesting question I've had recently, which isn't necessarily directly
related to the subject of the article is, "how does access to technology
affect brain development?"

When I was a kid, my family was dirt poor, in a fairly literal sense. That was
the early to mid 80's and while I was reasonably bright as a student, access
to technology really did hold me back.

I didn't get my hands on a computer until high school (in '90), and that was a
broken C-64 that I had to fix myself. I didn't have a TV to connect it to. I
had to earn enough to buy an old black and white TV at a garage sale before I
could even get it working.

My whole life I felt that this is what held me back, and so when the time
came, I endeavored to make sure my kids had access to technology if they were
interested.

But now I see where tech has headed. They've had computers, but mostly pads
and phones their entire lives. It seems almost like these platforms have
DULLED their imagination to some extent.

I wonder in the coming generations, if we will see some sort of correlation
with access to tech in one's formative years. Especially given the
intentionally addictive nature of many of the apps that have become popular in
recent years. Also as tech has become ubiquitous and cheap, access it not
entirely defined by economics anymore either.

Success is far more than raw intelligence. I'll be interesting to see how all
of that plays out in the next generation or two.

~~~
Xeoncross
As a counter point, I've always felt that a main thing holding people back was
desire & drive. You not having "it" lead to you cultivating a desire and a
drive to acquire.

Self motivation > resources

~~~
dyeje
Really? So, you have Child A and Child B.

Child A \- Wealthy upbringing \- Always full on nutritious food \- Elite,
private schooling \- Live in a stable, loving home

Child B \- Poor upbringing \- Almost always hungry, only able to eat cheap
calorie dense foods \- Public, underfunded inner city school \- Shuffled
around between foster homes

You think that the deciding factor for these examples would be their desire
and drive? I don't, and I think the science out there agrees with me when I
say poverty has numerous adverse effects on how a human turns out.

[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19b...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19bb1920ee8af5a04.pdf)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/)
[https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/an...](https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/annals.1425.023)
[https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-
dep...](https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-depression-
impact-childs-social-and-emotional-competence)
[http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx](http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx)

~~~
Clubber
I would say Child B would be a lot more successful if he had drive than if he
didn't. Same with Child A. I've known a lot of rich kids that didn't amount to
squat. (I went to one of those elite private schools, but my dad was a teacher
there, so we got steep discounts).

~~~
Hermitian909
Sure, but we're not comparing the child to themselves with and without
motivation holding all other factors constant. The question is, if two
otherwise equivalent children are placed in living situations of vastly
different quality how likely are differences in drive going to influence
success?

The fact that some poor kids succeed and some rich kids fail isn't nearly as
important as the what percentage of these groups succeed and fail.

------
thaumaturgy
Some further reading on this subject for those that are interested:

Poverty linked to epigenetic changes and mental illness:
[https://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-
cha...](https://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-and-
mental-illness-1.19972)

Childhood poverty linked to brain changes related to depression:
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/news/childhood-poverty-
link...](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/news/childhood-poverty-linked-brain-
changes-depression-305208)

What Poverty Does to Your Brain: [https://www.attn.com/stories/2442/effects-
poverty-brain-ment...](https://www.attn.com/stories/2442/effects-poverty-
brain-mental-health)

What Poverty Does to the Young Brain:
[https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-
to...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-the-young-
brain)

'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result:
[http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130721__Crack_baby__st...](http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130721__Crack_baby__study_ends_with_unexpected_but_clear_result.html)

How Poverty Taxes the Brain: [https://www.citylab.com/life/2013/08/how-
poverty-taxes-brain...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2013/08/how-poverty-
taxes-brain/6716/)

Freeing Up Intelligence:
[https://scholar.harvard.edu/sendhil/publications/freeing-
int...](https://scholar.harvard.edu/sendhil/publications/freeing-intelligence)

Growing Up Poor Is Bad for Your Brain:
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvb4gy/growing-
up...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvb4gy/growing-up-poor-is-
bad-for-your-brain)

These articles should be pretty good reads on the subject. Let me know if any
of them are especially weak.

------
throwaway5787
I grew up poor or lower middle class. But later my parents' finances improved
and my siblings grew up upper middle class.

I can tell you there is huge difference between my siblings especially
youngest and I when it comes to finance and career.

1\. They barely save any money, live pretty lavish lifestyle for what they
earn. I pretty much focus on saving. Sometimes, I will skip important events,
dinners, etc because I haven't met my savings goal. Before I got married, I
lived in 33% of after tax income.

(My friends split in two groups after college, those who upgraded their
lifestyle as they earned more money, and those who either kept college
lifestyle as long as possible or did not earn a lot after college to upgrade
their life style. I remained friend with later group only.)

2\. My siblings don't take shit form their bosses, quit jobs without finding
next one. I worry too much about my job, answer phone or emails after work
etc.

3\. My siblings will quit jobs and travel or find themselves or whatever. I
have never ever voluntarily quit job without finding next job.

4\. My siblings will risk significant amount of their savings in various
ventures. I only invest in index funds.

5\. They buy stuff on impulse. I will research best deals.

I can go on and on about difference in our mentality but main point is that
somehow even with 6 figure income, I fear poverty more than I should. And they
pretty much live as if money is unlimited resource.

This also causes issues with my wife though she lived in poverty a bit too, so
she understands my fears.

~~~
etqwzutewzu
It is well know that first-born are more risk averse than not-first-born when
adults (e.g., they buy more insurances).

See references here: [https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5802/do-
first-b...](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5802/do-first-borns-
buy-more-insurance)

------
robg
Correlation is not causation, but most factors say yes. Moreover, the brain
health of families is not generally a consideration in school systems. If kids
are under toxic stress and not sleeping enough to recover, their brains won't
develop to their full potential. That science is well-understood from animal
models and glimpsed in human neuroimaging studies.

~~~
lr4444lr
"Toxic stress" in childhood isn't a pre-ordained result of, nor should it even
have to correlate with, being poor.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Poverty and limited financial resources aren't really the same thing. I get
what you are saying, but it is something I have thought about a whole, whole
lot. It's a distinction we don't make clear enough. We talk as if poverty is
just about a low income. It's really not.

Let's posit two scenarios:

1\. There are people with low incomes whose lives work reasonably well.

2\. There are people whose lives don't work and one of the results of their
lives not working is a low income.

I think poverty is really that second item, not that first. I think we
conflate low income and poverty too much. There were lives that worked well
and lives that lacked critical elements long before modern money made it
convenient to assign a dollar value to our idea of what constituted poverty.
In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities
to a single number that doesn't necessary effectively capture what is going
on.

~~~
lr4444lr
_In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities
to a single number that doesn 't necessary effectively capture what is going
on._

I agree completely.

Obviously the evidence is compelling in cases where, for instance, the parents
so destitute that they cannot afford proper nutrition for an infant during
critical periods of neural development.

This article conflates things like that with kids who are stranded for a few
hours at the bus depot because their mother couldn't leave work early to pick
them up after taking the wrong bus home. That's ridiculous.

------
stcredzero
There is a study often cited by Thomas Sowell, which is never, ever mentioned
by those on the political left in the US and never mentioned by the far right
in the US -- as it goes against the narrative of both those groups. The study
found that the school aged children of African American servicemen in Germany
had the same average IQ as their classmates.

Something we're doing to large numbers of urban children in the US is morally
equivalent to putting lead in the water. It's largely been the political left
in the US which has had control of large urban areas. The culture of the US in
the 1st half of the 20th century wasn't harmful in this way. Poles and
Italians were able to increase their average IQ's to parity with the US as a
whole in that period. African Americans were also making progress in that
period, but this stopped in the 1960's.

One of the historical patterns which comes across in Thomas Sowell's work is
that of minority elites continuing the cultural isolation of their own group
to maintain their own power. One of the chief tools of maintaining cultural
isolation is identity politics.

~~~
JepZ
I can see how such a story is against the 'right/racist' narrative as they
think race has a major influence on intelligence, but why doesn't it fit the
'left' narrative which seems to categorize humans based on their social class?

~~~
nostromo
Talking about IQ among ethinicities is verboten on the left.

It’s also axiomatic on the left that all cultures are equally effective at
raising successful, healthy children. The German study suggests that culture
matters, which counters this axiom.

~~~
Sawamara
It is "verboten" (lol) on the left because it has nothing to do with your skin
color, and it has everything to do with the enviroment you grow up in.

~~~
vancan1ty
I don't get the joke. The truth is probably that genetics do play a role
(perhaps small though) in intelligence, as it does with other measures like
height or bone marrow donor compatibility.

~~~
Sawamara
Sure, but you can easily silence most whites who want to feel superior with
this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence)

However, even the above can just be used to maintain the tinfoil conspiracy
theory about jews running the world. So.... you cant get any useful conclusion
with this data, even if you use the data as it is (i.e. to say "on average",
and never use it to guess a certain person's intelligence based on ethnicity).

Also, the genes responsible for skin color,afaik, has nothing to do with the
intelligence of that human. Otherwise, there would literally be a cap on iq
for whiter or darker skinned humans. But there is not, any ethnicity can
produce stupid individuals and geniuses as well.

------
mikeleeorg
The book "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of
Character" by Paul Tough is a nice primer on this topic. The book includes
findings from the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study [1] that points at
a link between adverse childhood experiences childhood trauma with health and
social problems later in life.

Of course, growing up in poverty doesn't automatically mean you'll have a
higher ACE level, nor does it mean you cannot change your outcomes, but it
does tend to offer more traumatic experiences than children outside of
poverty.

[1] [https://www.samhsa.gov/capt/practicing-effective-
prevention/...](https://www.samhsa.gov/capt/practicing-effective-
prevention/prevention-behavioral-health/adverse-childhood-experiences)

------
Karishma1234
Growing up poor I think I had more stress then my peers but there was also an
element of street smartness which I realised my friends simply lacked. As poor
was pretty shameless asserting my needs or optimising for my benefit at the
expense of others where as my rich friends seemed to not understand my selfish
behaviour.

For example when I was offered a job I negotiated 200% more salary upfront.
The HR person was shocked but later we settled on 140% more. Where my other
friend made much much less.

Poverty is a state of mind but it had other benefits too in my case.

------
ourcat
Not when it comes to pure improvisation and ingenuity to get by, solve or
problem and make life easier.

It's astounding what people in that situation can come up with.

~~~
matte_black
Wouldn’t that be explained by survivorship bias?

~~~
closeparen
It's possible but not typical to _literally die_ of poverty in the United
States.

~~~
dv_dt
I think that is systematically untrue. Poverty is correlated with a shorter
lifespan. More graphs in the second link...

[https://news.stanford.edu/2016/04/11/geography-income-
play-r...](https://news.stanford.edu/2016/04/11/geography-income-play-roles-
in-life-expectancy-new-stanford-research-shows/)

"Being richer was associated with living longer at every level of the income
distribution. And the gap between the richest 1 percent and the bottom 1
percent in the nation was vast. At 40, the richest men could expect to live to
87 while the bottom 1 percent had a life expectancy of just above 72 – equal
to the average in a developing country like Sudan"

[https://healthinequality.org/documents/paper/healthineq_summ...](https://healthinequality.org/documents/paper/healthineq_summary.pdf)

~~~
Domenic_S
That's a deeply reductionist way of looking at it.

> _At the same time, the researchers are quick to point out that the findings
> cannot immediately be reduced to simple cause-and-effect explanations. For
> instance, as social scientists have long observed, it is very hard to say
> whether having wealth leads to better health — or if health, on aggregate,
> is a prerequisite for accumulating wealth. Most likely, the two interact in
> complex ways, something the study cannot resolve._ \-
> [https://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-
> gap...](https://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-gap-
> us-0411)

In other words, this is a chicken-and-egg problem.

~~~
dv_dt
If you parse that question carefully, it is not asking if existing wealth can
help confer health. The question is if health is needed to accumulate (more)
wealth. Word in () added. And that seems like a silly question - of course
people are going to have more difficulty accumulating wealth with sufficiently
bad health..

I think there is a definite policy question of how exactly is it that wealth
helps grant better health, and can we effectively increase our society's
health by knowing in more detail... but to me the fundamental link doesn't
have much more to prove with that data.

------
LinuxBender
Could a contributing factor be the quality of food that easier to access when
poor? I grew up in a slightly higher than poverty environment and had to cook
when my mom was at work. I was probably an exception, all my friends would eat
frozen prepared meals and fast food.

Calories certainly do not equal proper vitamins, enzymes and amino acids,
required for a developing living being. Frozen meals and fast food have plenty
of empty calories and can put the body in survival mode, storing more fat and
leading to blood sugar issues, to say the least. Thoughts?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Nutrition is definitely a factor, but probably not the major one.

I think the number one factor is probably access to parental attention.

It's shocking how much better an elementary age student can do when there is a
parent to remind them about a homework project that is due. Or be available to
answer a question on basic math or the meaning of a word.

Even in two equally driven students, self learning gets stuck at home in ways
parents can unblock if they have the time and energy to do it.

------
peter_retief
Being poor is not something you can tell someone, you need to live it to
experience the horror, you are despised and disrespected for something you had
no control over

~~~
mrguyorama
>something you had no control over

A significant contingent of the population does not believe that to be true.

~~~
adamsea
Well, when it comes to children at least, they are wrong.

~~~
mrguyorama
Aye, I do not agree with that idea

------
andrewl
There's a researcher at the Center for Neuroscience & Society at the
University of Pennsylvania who researches this topic:

[https://neuroethics.upenn.edu/portfolio-items/childhood-
pove...](https://neuroethics.upenn.edu/portfolio-items/childhood-poverty-and-
brain-development-from-science-to-policy-martha-j-farah/)

------
arvinsim
I don't know about brain development but I think that it tends to encourage
narrowmindedess.

When you only have a few options and choosing the wrong one is potentially
devastating, you tend to zero in on the safe and sure choice. Iterate on this
a million times and you have a person who will tend to stick to the status quo
and dismiss other options.

------
known
Scientists have discovered that being poor actually impairs our cognitive
abilities; [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/the-lasting-
impacts...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/the-lasting-impacts-of-
po_n_4170124.html)

------
robg
The work by Greenough is a classic on experiences and brain development. e.g.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3038480](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3038480)

------
camdenreslink
Growing up poor > More likely to experience lead paint/lead in water > Harmed
brain development.

------
Regardsyjc
In my experience, I have recognized cycles of trauma. My mom grew up in
poverty with food insecurity and her dad was an abusive alcoholic- so much
that when he passed away it was like good riddance. He was so abusive my
grandmother refused to remarry.

I didn't grow up with food insecurity but I remember that a $1 ice cream
sandwich or slice of pizza was a luxury until I got my first job.

My first relationship was with an abusive person. He tried to control what I
eat, separate me from my friends and family, and almost destroyed me. It was
only when a friend recommended me a book Why Does He Do That? that I
recognized in horror that not only was he abusive, I saw the same red flags in
another relationship, my parents...

Environment is so important, sometimes I see this cycle in others. I'm afraid
when you come from an abusive environment sometimes you don't know any better.
You don't know how you should or deserve to be treated.

I saw a documentary about two young girls that were the first in their
families to graduate high school and go to college in one of the poorest
neighborhoods in the USA [1]. It was a feel good documentary and then I looked
up the students on Facebook. One student was now a teen mom and the other had
dropped out of college and was working at McDonald's. She was publicly crying
for help on her Facebook personal page on why her life was so miserable. I
understand that feeling to feel cursed just for being alive.

I believe she may have been bullied by her wealthier classmates... Separated
from her support network, bullied, and struggling to learn as well as go to
school, I feel like her odds were heavily stacked against her to begin with.
(And that's what Shanti Bhavan discovered too. You can't help them go to
college and leave them hanging, you have to support them through college).

However, I've also seen incredible stories of strength from some of the
poorest places on earth. Shanti Bhavan [2], Barefoot College [3], and SECMOL
[4] have done and are doing incredible work!

My uneducated belief is that what all three of those places have in common is
their deep love and unwavering belief for their students whether they are
children or an illiterate grandmother training to be a solar engineer- as well
as arming them with skills to work and provide for their families (probably
the major key- that's how they gain their confidence).

Maybe that's one way to tackle poverty as a mental health issue. Help
traumatized communities that might be in a cycle of trauma to break abusive
mindsets. Teach needed skills, confidence, and financial literacy, so they can
believe that they can be more than a teen mom or like my mom, locked in an
abusive marriage or relationship from financial dependence.

I sincerely hope that poor American children today are not being treated worse
than children from families who live with less than $1/day. In that sense, I
believe instead of tackling poverty as neurological/biological, we should also
investigate the environmental and behavioral.

As another movement says, violent communities don't need more police officers
but mental health counselors.

As for anyone who says that the poor are lazy, please read about the salt
farmers of India in Gujarat [5]. Watch My Name is Salt [6] to see how they
farm salt for 8 months for almost nothing. You will never be able to call the
poor lazy after seeing that.

[1] Oyler documentary:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06ZY7Z66X](https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06ZY7Z66X)

[2] Daughters of Destiny Netflix documentary:
[http://www.shantibhavanchildren.org/netflix/](http://www.shantibhavanchildren.org/netflix/)

[3] Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College TED talk:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy](https://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy)

[4] Sonam Wangchuk, founder of SECMOL TED talk:
[https://youtu.be/t5-Dea7rpRg](https://youtu.be/t5-Dea7rpRg)

[4] Jungwa, The Broken Balance is a documentary by a SECMOL grad on how
climate change is affecting his home in Ladakh, India:
[https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jungwathebrokenbalance](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jungwathebrokenbalance)

[5] [https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/08/salt-
fa...](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/08/salt-farmers-
india-rann-kutch-marshes-160823114732598.html)

[6] [https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Salt-Farida-
Pacha/dp/B01MDK9N...](https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Salt-Farida-
Pacha/dp/B01MDK9N8E)

More resources on poverty:

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

------
jonjojr
everything is about the environment. If you have an under stimulating
environment then even your health is affected.

Read about the WWII pregnant survivors of holocaust where their lack of food
evolved into the fetus being stingy with proteins and sugars and now they are
experiencing health problems because now their body stores more than it needs
and weight gain and other health factors arose.

So yes, environment can be detrimental to not only brain, but full
physiological development

------
carapace
Nutrition.

------
elvirs
I guess thats why im dumb

------
quantumofmalice
The consensus amongst intelligence researchers is that adult intelligence is
~70-80% based on genetic factors. I refer you to The Neuroscience of
Intelligence - Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology by Richard
Haier and the many studies sited therein.

We should help poor and less intelligent people for moral reasons, but it is
unlikely to improve intelligence in the poorer population and, if the aid is
structured dysgenically, it will serve only to compound the problem.

~~~
klmr
As you are saying, 20–30 per cent of the variability of intelligence is _not_
heritable. In other words, it’s acquired. This contradicts your claim that
“[helping them] is unlikely to improve intelligence in the poorer population”.
If done correctly, it will improve intelligence.

~~~
quantumofmalice
I am saying that the evidence suggests that 70-80% of adult[1] intelligence is
based on genetic factors (that is distinct from heritability, which is lower,
~60% iirc) leaving the remaining 20-30% as unknown environmental factors.
Wealth intuitively does play a role in that, although I believe (with as
strong of evidence any anyone else does in the matter of environmental
outcomes) that a strong parental bond matters more than wealth.

Again, my concern is that if unstructured wealth transfer is treated as a
panacea, it will end up having compounding dysgenic effects that outweigh
whatever short term individual benefits come of it. This will, in the not very
long run, make poverty worse.

It isn't saving me any karma since people can't be rational about this topic,
but I'll stress again that I think we should help the poor for moral reasons.

[1] - It is important to specify adult intelligence, because interventions do
appear to help childhood IQ, but this effect fades into adulthood and eventual
life outcomes. This is why there was a lot of excitement around Head Start
initially, but it has failed to produce the large changes in society that was
hoped for.

~~~
heurist
The remaining 20-30% is related to childhood nutrition, education,
opportunities to play, learning from peer groups... all of which are heavily
impacted by wealth/poverty. And 20-30% is A LOT. Luck plays as much of a role
in wealth as intelligence, so to assume that wealthy are more intelligent from
genetic reasons and therefore poor families will remain poor is myopic.

Unstructured wealth transfer will never happen (except in cryptocurrencies) so
I don't think you need to worry about that. The current effort is to get
hardheaded free-marketers to recognize that equal opportunity is a myth.

~~~
klmr
> Unstructured wealth transfer will never happen

Basic income is arguably that, and there’s some hope that it will happen in
the not so far future (or rather, there’s a reasonable fear that without it,
and with the structural changes to the job market due to advanced automation,
we’d be f#cked).

