Again, this may sound simple, but making changes to habitual patterns of thought takes patience, persistence, and determination. Many find that they are too lost in the catastrophizing to do it alone and choose to seek the help of a therapist. Whatever the method, the good news is that catastrophizers do have it in their power to become more realistic, and to learn to laugh it off should an acorn drop on their heads.
CHAPTER 6
Childhood and School Days
Philip, a healthy infant, weighed seven pounds at birth. He was not breast-fed. His toddler years were uneventful. A precocious learner, he began first grade at an unusually young age. How did such early characteristics and experiences affect later health and longevity?
The effects of early life events on later health are puzzling. For example, nutritional problems at a very young age might predispose a child to later heart disease and other adult illnesses, and impaired childrearing can affect later reactions to stressful challenges; but most children seem unaffected. Severe deficiencies are obviously a problem, but what about the large number of common variations—are these findings about early risks mostly hype, or are they serious factors to worry about?
The Terman children’s weight at birth ranged from under six pounds to ten pounds, with the average being about eight pounds. Some were not in good health during their first year while others were quite hearty. Later in childhood, some were judged by Terman and his staff or by physicians to be “below average” in health while others were “very superior.” Some had undergone surgeries or had serious accidents during early childhood while others had never been hospitalized. Of course all were doing well enough to be recruited by Terman into his study, and we cannot reach any conclusions here about very ill or traumatized children.
Startlingly, these and many related early health indicators were not associated with long life. Generally speaking, a simple early health advantage or disadvantage was not that important to later health trajectories. This does not mean that some such small relations or associations could not be found in a very large study of hundreds of thousands of children. And it certainly is true that significant malnutrition, significant prematurity, or significant exposure to toxins (including prenatal alcohol exposure) can translate into very serious long-term health threats.
However, unless there is brain damage, our research has led us to be skeptical about claims that a single indicator of early health would usually be of lasting significance across the decades for most middle-class people. We found that many aspects of early life do indeed matter, but typically only as part of general patterns that build and become more pronounced throughout life.
Breast-Feeding
The typical Terman child was breast-fed for about eight months. But many were not breast-fed at all, and a few were breast-fed until they were three years old.
Perhaps because a newborn is so frail and helpless or perhaps because it’s a practice that’s entangled with culture and gender wars, breast-feeding often provokes heated debate. Many women worry and struggle as to whether and how long they should breast-feed their babies. In the United States, breast-feeding has taken a place in the pantheon of health behaviors about which to agonize and fret.
There is little doubt that breast-feeding is usually healthy for infants, especially those who are at high risk for illness or are from poor families living in less than optimal conditions. Breast-feeding provides a rich source of nutrients and of protective antibodies, and it can help launch a healthy and continuing mother-child attachment. But how large are the benefits for infants who have access to excellent nutrition without breast-feeding and who are growing up in stable families with sufficient resources to provide a clean, safe environment? Is breast-feeding one of those “must-do” activities that has major long-term effects, or is it one of those behaviors in the long list of things that are helpful but nowhere near essential in promoting a long, healthy life?
The Terman children provided an answer. We knew that studying them could put breast-feeding into the greater context of their lives. We gathered information, originally collected from the parents, on breast-feeding in almost 1,200 of the Terman participants.
Many behaviors and processes associated with breast-feeding, both biological and social, could be relevant to health across the decades. But the simplest and most powerful analysis would ask whether the breast-fed Terman children lived longer and whether they were less likely to die of any particular diseases.
Consistent with other research, we did find that breast-feeding was associated with better infant health. But what about the long term? It turned out that breast-feeding made little difference. There were some indications that the breast-fed males were a little healthier, but no clear patterns really existed. Breast-feeding also seemed, after careful examination, to be unrelated to personality.33
All in all, our findings, coupled with the scientific evidence provided by others, suggest that breast-feeding is likely a healthful practice; but in developed areas with good nutrition, it is unlikely to be more than a very minor influence on long-term health and longevity in adulthood.
Early Education
Things got more interesting when we examined early education. Aside from our families, the most important early influences on our paths to health are school and friendships. Infants possess many newly forming abilities and predispositions—some arising from genes and others coming from in-the-womb experiences (such as exposure to hormones) and the early home environment. Some of the Terman infants were active and some were more relaxed; some were shy and some were intrinsically curious about other children. But beyond the influences of these predispositions and our early home lives, it is predominantly in school and among peers that we begin to shape lifelong patterns of competition or cooperation, perseverance or impulsivity, isolation or social integration, and activity or passivity. These patterns, in turn, are linked to later health and longevity.
Before we turn to our examination of the Terman children’s early education, pause a moment to reflect on your own early experiences—and answer about yourself some of the same questions the Terman participants’ parents answered about them.
Answer the five following questions.
Did you go to preschool?
At what age did you enter regular school (first grade)?
Did you learn to read before starting school?
Was your primary (elementary) school rigid and competitive?
Did you ever skip a grade?
Although all these answers relate to academic progress and achievement, it turns out that it doesn’t make sense to add them all together to get an overall score. In fact, as we explored these elements in more detail we found that they were quite different in terms of their relation to mortality risk. So, as we continue, keep your answers in mind.
33
For our breast-feeding study see D. L. Wingard, K. H. Criqui, S. Edelstein, J. Tucker, C. Tomlinson-Keasey, J. E. Schwartz, and H. S. Friedman,“Is Breast-Feeding in Infancy associated with Adult Longevity?”