We are exposed to pollutants and ultraviolet rays on a daily basis, which raises our chance of being sick. Due to fast food, drink, or tobacco smoke, for example, many people take on extra dangers.
The risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic lung illnesses, sexually transmitted infections, chronic pain, and mental illness is increased by a less well-known exposure that is even more widespread than smoking and can shorten one’s life by up to 20 years.
Childhood adversity, which includes events like physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect, is a public health risk that lurks in plain sight.
In Canada, one out of every three kids experiences physical or sexual abuse or sees adult violence in the home. Far more frequent are other difficulties like emotional neglect, living in a dangerous area, or encountering prejudice and bullying. According to studies conducted in the United States, these ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, affect roughly 60% of children and teenagers. The risk to your health increases with the level of exposure.
Adverse childhood experiences increase a child’s likelihood to smoke, drink excessively, and use non-prescription drugs when they get older. They are more likely to grow fat and partake in dangerous sexual behavior. Of course, not all children with ACEs engage in risky activities, but enough do so to have an impact on their health.
Growing up in frequently terrifying or stressful environments has an impact on the biology of developing bodies, particularly on the systems that control our responses to threats, such as viruses and predators. Even chromosomal modifications linked to early mortality are connected to ACEs.
As psychiatrists for adults who experience physical and mental illness in combination, our patients often tell us about the personal impact of ACEs. One man said he did not “have even the slightest shadow of a doubt that a loss of human connection is the most substantial negative impact” of these experiences. The health costs of human disconnection are profound. Indeed, lacking interpersonal support may hasten mortality as much or more than smoking, excessive drinking, inactivity, obesity or untreated high blood pressure.
The psychological effects of ACEs may be more obvious and can include fearful expectations, a conviction that one is unworthy of love or protection, unregulated anger or shame and discombobulating memories of bad events.
