Mental Health In America Research Paper

Sarah Harker
APLAC 6th
Richard Porritt
April 19th, 2018

Mental Health in America Maintaining mental health and wellness is a rather complex task- and the possible problems associated with mental health can be rather debilitating depending on their severity. Mental health is described as including the emotional and behavioral areas of health and is crucial to a given child's well being. More over, mental health can vastly impact various areas of life including, personal relationships, work and school and physical health. The prevalence of mental health issues among the United States' children is vast and is seemingly increasing. Data from the 2005-2006 National Health Interview Survey indicated that about 8.3 million children

These difficulties have been described to affect the child or parents in a variety of ways such as affecting the interaction with others, increasing home life difficulty, the child's learning ability or the child becomes perceived as a burden to the family. There are a wide variety of reasons a child is afflicted with emotional or behavioral problems such as genetics, poor health and socioeconomic status. However, the child's family income can exacerbate emotional or behavioral problems. Poor children suffer more from emotional or behavioral difficulties as compared to non-poor children. Brooks-Gunn and Duncan (1997) described that children from consistently poorer families are more likely to suffer from internalizing and externalizing behavior problems than children who had never been poor. Poverty, which affects both physical and mental health, will in turn affect the child's normal development resulting in lower IQ, learning disabilities, grade retention, and school dropout in older children. Despite their cause, all children suffering from behavioral difficulties are at risk for reduced academic achievement. Breslau et al. (2009) conducted a longitudinal study examining the effect of behavioral difficulties on academic success. Children were assessed for behavioral problems at age 6 and then reexamined at age 17 for academic success.

Feingold. Feingold (1975) indicated that hyperactivity in children was linked to allergies to certain food additives and preservatives 8,12. As such, the Feingold diet, which eliminates said components, has been examined in children and its role in hyperactivity and ADHD. Diets rich in artificial food colorings and additives have been described to increase hyperactivity in children. One randomized, double- blinded, placebo controlled, cross over study indicated that such food additives do in fact increase the hyperactivity of both the three year old children group and the 8/9 year aged group