9 - Social and Economic Influences on Growth and Secular Trends

Abstract

When the environment supports the genetic template that regulates development, the resulting interaction is positive. Growth patterns respond to environmental pressures and the resulting attributes of the adult display adaptations to the ecosystem attributes of the adult display adaptations to the ecosystem. However, in today's world, most of the population exist under conditions of great social and economic disadvantage, with poverty, malnutrition, disease, an overcrowding indicative of a spectrum of misery composing the environment within which millions of children grow to adulthood. Rather than providing a set of supportive experiences within which individuals may reach their genetic potential, the environment becomes for many not only a threat to life but also a systemic force that interferes with the achievement of their human potential as an adult member of society. This chapter highlights the role of social environment on growth and development of a child, and those components that are traceable directly to the position of the child in its society. The social position is a cultural construct and depends heavily on the system of beliefs and symbols characteristic of a particular group and determined by traits of the child as well as traits associated with groups to which he or she belongs. Social position is therefore determined by a range of factors, such as, but not limited to, age, sex, status, economic position, physical location, and ethnicity.