Stressor

This week we were asked to write about a stressor that had affected either us or someone we know.  I chose to write about the stressor of poverty and how it affected a friend of mine.  I will call him “A”. Before I begin I would like to define what poverty is just to give us some perspective.  Dictionary.com defines poverty as “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” or “deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities”.

My friend “A” grew up in poverty.  When my friend’s his father lost his job because the company moved to Mexico where they could make their products cheaper; it through his family for a loop.  His mother was mentally ill and unable to get disability and unable to work, so his father was the sole bread winner.  They were barely getting by while he was working and loosing his job did not help the situation at all.  They struggled with knowing where their next meal would come from and working whatever jobs they could get to make enough to eat.  Many times their only meals came from school.  Sadly this affected my friend in many ways but the ways that it has affected him the most have been biosocially and pychosocially. 

Due to the fact that they ate what was cheap and easy to make he formed poor eating habits.  Also having very little to eat he would over eat when there was food.  This later in life has caused “A” many problems.  He is very over weight and has a difficult time knowing when to stop eating, even though his situation has improved.  Also due to his extreme poverty he was never able really to learn how to interact with other correctly. This also still causes him many problems because it is difficult to know what is appropriate for different professional and social situations. 

I think that he used laughter and education as a means to help him cope with their poverty.  He read a lot and learned how to use his hands.  Through that he was able to maintain some form of spirit until things got a little bit better. 

I found this stressor of poverty something that is so widespread throughout the entire world.  Even, here at home, in the United States we are struggling with high amounts of poverty.  Our numbers are not that of countries like African; however they are just not acceptable for a developed country like America.  The U.S. Census Bureau reported for 2010 the national rate of poverty was 15.1% and has been on an increase for the last four years. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html

There are many reasons for the rise in poverty. Loss of jobs due to the economic downfall, resulting in a lack of income, segregation due to race and lack of income and many others.  Being in poverty typically will mean that you are then going to have a lack of food.  This would then speak to the problem of hunger in America.  Thousands of adults and children are going hungry every day in America. 

America isn’t even the worst of it though; places like Africa have situations that are even worse than ours.  According to worldpoverty.org many places are experiencing absolute poverty, “Absolute poverty involves people and their children having extreme difficulty in merely surviving. Such poverty at its worst can involve hunger amounting to starvation, often combined with inadequate shelter or housing and clothing. Absolute poverty has been common in more primitive societies, and is still common in many Third World countries in Africa, Asia and South America especially where it can afflict the majority of the population.”

Just as mentioned above hunger in these places usually ends in starvation.  Children in this type of stressor have little means of coping.  Their brains will cease to develop once the starvation has progressed far enough.  Our bodies will steal all the nourishment that it can for our brains to continue to develop until it can steal no longer and then our bodies start to break down.  If a child is starving their biosocial development will cease and the child physical and mental growth will stunt.  This will also begin to affect their cognitive development and well as psychosocial development. 

There are many things that are being tried to help stop these issues of poverty and hunger.  However, with the economical down spirals of so many countries aide is becoming scarcer.  There is one organization that is trying a new approach in hopes that it will have more permanent results.  The Hunger Project (THP) is a global, non-profit, strategic organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. They have recently started trying to teach the people how to take care of themselves more and provided them with the resource but are making the people responsible for making something out of them.  I think that this approach is one of the best ways to begin to combat hunger and poverty.  I would encourage you to check out their website. http://www.thp.org/