Saturday, January 28, 2012

Child Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 45% of children are affected by at least one moderate to severe deprivation, which means that almost 81 million people under the age of 18 suffer from child poverty. For instance, in Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru, over two thirds of children suffer from poverty; in Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, fewer than one in four children live in poverty. Some of the areas that children are being deprived in these countries are nutrition, access to drinking water, connection to sanitation services, quality of housing and the number of people per room, school attendance and access to information and communication media. I have been to Peru and one of the things that most saddened me the most was to see children on the streets selling candies, water bottles, scarfs, hats, etc. or offering you a tour of the area just for one sol (.30 American cents) also children panhandling, and all this happening during school hours.

Reference:
ECLA-UNICEF study. (2008-2009). Child Poverty Affects almost 81 Million Children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved from:http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/prensa/noticias/comunicados/0/43460/P43460.xml&xsl=/prensa/tpl/p6f.xsl&base=/tpl/top-bottom.



Divorce

The stressor that affected my life when I was growing up was my parents’ divorce. My parents got a divorce when I was 12 years old. Before my parents divorced, I had been a responsible student, and I had excellent grades. When my mother filed for divorce she took me, and my siblings out of the school we were attending, move out of the house, and left the city we were living. I remember how dramatic that was for me. I was crying when my mother picked me up at school, and I cried all the way to my grandparents’ house. I left my school, my friends and my father, and I felt that I was leaving a part of me behind. In that new stage of my life, I took the role of my mother’s helper. I helped with house duties and to take care of my 3 siblings. My mother relied on me for many things and gave me many responsibilities. As a student, I never went back to be the responsible student that I was. I became rebellious, irresponsible, and my grades went down. I started skipping school and hanging out with the wrong people. I was very resentful at my father and the life I was forced to live. I made new friends in my new town, but I was never again able to create attachments with them. I lost trust in people, and I only believed and relied in what I can do myself. At the age of 16, I became a mother and everything change again. I turned to my mother for support, and she did not fail me. We bonded again and developed a wonderful mother-daughter relationship. I decided to do well in school again, I finished high school went on to college and graduated. When I look at my past, I can identify why I do things the way I do them now. I became an independent and self-sufficient woman at a very young age. I still do not trust a lot of people and I have a hard time opening up to friends. I was able to forgive my parents for everything that I went through with their divorce, but certainly there are things that I cannot change now.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

CHILDHOOD OBESITY



One of the current public health issues affecting children that most concerns me is childhood obesity.  Obesity in our country has become an epidemic, but it is even scary to me that obesity is now presenting in children as young as infants.  The lifestyle of families in United States is causing entire families to be overweight.  American families most of the time skip breakfast, have a very light and quick lunch, and it is not until dinner time that some of the families get to sit down and enjoy a pleasant meal.  Due to this by the time families are sitting to eat dinner they are so hungry and tired that they tend to over eat.  In addition to these many families are buying their dinner meals from fast food restaurant which triple the calories and fats.  Also, children are not participating in physical activities in a daily basis. Also, some of the states and counties due to funding cuts have removed Physical Education classes from their requisite courses.  Children are spending hundreds of hours a year in front of the T.V., computers, and video games.  As a consequence of all these facts, American children are becoming sick and developing serious diseases as diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, etc.   This situation is very sad; children are the future of our country and we all need to make an effort to fight the obesity epidemic in the country.  Families need to be educated on this topic and nutrition.  Parents need to learn to cook healthy meals.  Also, parents need to be more involved in the education of their children and encourage them to participate in physical activities at least for 60 minutes a day.  The best way to do this is setting up an example for the children.  As early childhood educators, there is a lot we can do; we can start educating the parents about health and nutrition, introduce healthy choices during breakfast, lunch and snack and making sure that, in our curriculum and lesson plans, we allowed 60 minutes of physical activity.  The 60 minutes of physical activity do not have to be all in once it can be done throughout the day.

Childhood Obesity is not only a problem of United States.  In Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean is now a growing concern.  In the last 50 years, food availability has increased in Latin America and the Caribbean, making a wider range of food easily accessible. Unfortunately, some of this food has very poor nutritional value (high in fat and sugar). Also, recently childhood obesity has been recognized in Europe.  More than ever we have to emphasize in educating children and families of all races and ethnicities on this global health problem.


Childhood Obesity Resources:

http://student.purduecal.edu/~lu65/Researches/Childhood%20Obesity.pdf

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/child_obesity/

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPHN%2FPHN4_1a%2FS1368980001000179a.pdf&code=09d8e7c5723605c3e6bbfbf916a408e1

http://tc.iaea.org/tcweb/news_archive/childhood_obesity/default.asp








Saturday, January 7, 2012

Births in Peru

Prenatal care in Peru is influenced by two key issues formal education of women and place of residence.  This is because, in this country, the government makes greater efforts to provide modern maternal health care services in the big cities than in the rural areas.  For instance, the women in large cities have access to prenatal education, health services and delivery assistance while the women in the rural areas do not even have access to medical care and assistance.  The women in the cities give birth in a hospital and the ones in the rural areas at home.  People of Peru also believe that women are allowed to eat everything they want while they are expecting.  This practice in this country affects the rate of infant mortality in the rural areas.  Also, more children are born with health issues in the rural areas and health issues affect their development.  The way this is similar to my own experience is about prenatal care even though that prenatal care was available to me.   I did not have prenatal care until I was 4 months pregnant because I was scare.   Another similarity was about food.  We all know that pregnant have to be extra careful with their nutrition, but in Peru they still think pregnant women should eat everything they want without any restrictions.  The difference is that if I were a Peruvian living in a rural area when I was pregnant I would  probably  have lost my child, or he would be born with health issues.

Birth Experience

I chose my child’s birth to talk about a birth experience.  Twenty one years ago I became pregnant when I was only 16 years old.  I can remember how scare I was when I found out.  I did not have an idea of what I was going to do, but because of my values and beliefs I knew that abortion was not a choice.  During my first trimester, I was very sad because I felt that I had betrayed my mother.  My mother found out that I was pregnant when I was 4 months into the pregnancy.  After my mother had found out about my pregnancy, I got married to the father of my child and started to live an adult life.  I remember that my family believed that pregnant women get to eat everything they want regardless of  healthy or not.  I took advantage of that, and I dedicated my time to eat a lot.  By the time, I was 8 months pregnant   I had high blood pressure and diabetes.  My doctor had to practice an emergency C-section because I developed preeclampsia.  That the situation was very scary and put at risk my baby’s life.  Fortunately my baby was born healthy and without any complications.  My baby got to go home before me because the doctors had to control my systems before they sent me home.  Due to that I missed the opportunity to breast feed my child because by the time I was released from the hospital he was used to the bottle, and he did not want my breast.  The fact that I was so young had an effect on the way I took care of pregnancy and in my son’s development.  The first five years of my son’s life he spent more time with my mother than with me. I was trying to work and go to school to offer a better future to my son.  At that age, I thought that the most important thing was to have something to offer him in the future, and I did not know that the present was also very important.  Now, that I have knowledge in the early childhood development I think about all the things that I missed and how would I have done different if I knew the things that I now know.