Popular kids become healthier adults

Children who are popular and exercise power among their classmates enjoy better health as adults, according to new research.

The research, carried out on 14,000 children born in Sweden in 1953, tracked their long-term health until 2003.

The degree of popularity, power, and status enjoyed by each child was assessed when the children reached the sixth grade in 1966 and were around 13 years old.

Analysis of the data showed that the children who were furthest down the "pecking order" at school had the highest overall risk of serious ill-health when they reached adulthood.

This pattern was evident for both men and women, although there were differences in the type of ill-health each sex developed.

Children who were the least popular and least powerful at school were more than four times as likely to require hospital treatment for hormonal, nutritional and metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, as their most popular and powerful classmates.

The less popular children were significantly more likely to develop drug and alcohol dependency problems and nine times more likely to develop heart disease.

The research is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

[Posted: Tue 29/09/2009]