Poverty Threatens not Only Children’s Health, but also Their Education
2.4 The Consequences of Poverty
This article, ” Poverty threatens not only children’s health, but also their education ” written by Shelley Callahan, talks about how poverty affects children’s life. According to her research, it is said that “22 percent of of children in the United States live below federal poverty level” (Poverty Threatens 2018). This fact has increased over the past 35 years because the cost of housing, food, transportation, and the number of divorce has risen. These facts lead to child poverty because it gets harder to save money and feed children for parents. What is worse the facts can lead to children’s health problem such as malnutrition because of their food and the environment how they can live their life. For example, if children live in poverty, they may have a bad habit to eat inadequate food such as fast food because it is cheaper and easier to get. Likewise, there is no wonder that they do not have good facilities in their house such as air conditioner, bed and so on. In order to not cause children to have health problem such as malnutrition and insufficient healthcare, which “can lead to increases in school absences, tardiness, incidents of illness during class, and untreated health problems” (Poverty Threatens 2018), how much those children can have nutrient food is going to be a key. These negative effects to children cause them to have bad education as well. According to our textbook, “The consequence of poverty”, it is written that “poverty can change the way the brain develops in young children” (Chapter 2.4 The consequence). Thus, there is no wonder that children get isolated.
This article relates to our topic this week of poverty. I realized that living in poverty life causes children harder than others who live in non-poverty life to get good education, rather they are likely to have bad education from their parents and neighbor. Poor people tend to live in dilapidated housing and unable to buy their own homes. Thus they live in poor neighborhoods that could cause children such as “neighborhood crime and drug use; divorce, parental conflict, and other family problems, including abuse and neglect by their parents; parental financial problems and unemployment” (Chapter 2.4 The consequence). It seems that once they see the “bad education”, they may feel trauma which make them withdrawn in the house. As I studied about poverty, I learned about how hard the life is, and I got surprised at it at the same time, especially about how poverty life affects to children. Even though there are some solutions of this problem like funding, implementing program that addresses the causes of poverty, providing social welfare and so on, theses effects to children living in poverty will continue to be seen as a social problem.
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