Early Childhood Sociology

In early childhood as in infancy, the body and brain develop according to powerful epigenetic forces, biologically driven as well as socially guided, experience-expectant and experience- dependent. Growing patterns in children change dramatically over time. During early childhood, children become slimmer as the lower body lengthens and baby fat turns to muscle. The body mass index also knows as the BMI is lower at age 5 than at any other age in the entire life span (Guillaume & Lissau 2002) BMI, the ratio of weight to height. Gone are the protruding belly, round face, short limb, and large head that characterize the toddler. The center of gravity moves from the breastbone to the belly button, enabling cartwheel, summersaults, balancing acts,

Height differences are greater within ethnic groups than between groups, body size especially varied among children of African descent because they are more genetically diverse than people from other continents (Goel et al., 2004). Over the centuries, low income families encourage their children to eat so that they would have a reserve of fat to protect them against famine. Today the poorest nations, malnourished young children are more likely to die young than other children. The malnourished also become less capable adolescent, as shown by a recent study in Ghana. Compared with similar children who were malnourished in early childhood, more of them were depressed, mentally impaired, or both (Appoh, 2004; Appoh & Krekling,

The main reason is their high sugar content one of the many other reasons is that some essential nutrients have not yet been identified, much less listed on food labels. This means that eating a wide variety of foods is the only way to make sure that essential vitamins and minerals are being consumed. Oral health also plays a role in too much sugar and too little fiber encourage tooth decay, the most common disease of young children in developed nations.

Brains grow rapidly before birth and throughout infancy by age 2 most neurons are connected to another neurons, and substantial pruning of dendrites, has occurred. The functions of the brain that makes us most human are the ones that develop after infancy, enabling quicker, better-coordinated, and more reflective thought (Kagan & Herschkowitz., 2005). The brain growth that occurs after infancy allows advanced language and social understanding and is crucial difference between humans and other