Ethan Jaggars

Mr. Struckmeyer
HDFS 2113
11/26/2016

BPA and Your Child’s Lifespan

A child goes through many series of different events and development in their lifetime.

With the chemical, BPA, in many products, this chemical can impact these events and

developments. BPA a leading chemical in many plastic products especially introduced in

products for children. This BPA, bisphenol A, can cause major problems in the development of

children and has been tested on small animals to show the results. A woman named, Marla Cone,

wrote an article explaining the negative effects of BPA and how it affects kids. She wrote this

article in 2008, when the BPA problem was hitting some major popularity. While the problem is

big in children, the article points out that the effect on adults is negligible. The article also

mentions how Canada and the United States are trying to label BPA as a toxic substance to be

removed from public use. The use of the toxic substance can hold to be substantially threatening

to the life of future generations and current generations. While Children grow, they are more

susceptible to disease and disorders such as ones caused by BPA. These can affect their

development as a child, their environment and family’s lives, and how it affects their lifespan

with the symptoms.

The article presents many symptoms that can be caused by BPA. BPA, according to the

article, can cause disruptions in hormones and alters genes, programs a fetus or child for breast

or prostate cancer, premature female puberty, attention deficit disorders and other reproductive

or neurological disorders. All these symptoms can cause great damage to a person’s quality of

life. Some can cause social problems, mental, and emotion problems, and even cause up to
premature death. As these symptoms grow the more they can cause damage to the physical,

socioemotional, and cognitive patterns in the children.

Cognitive development, the developing of a child’s thinking and processing abilities.

This can be altered with BPA by the attention deficit disorders and altered hormones can also

affect these cognitive processes. Attention deficit disorders such as, ADD, and ADHD with sub-

categories that were mentioned in the book, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

The book also mentions how these attention deficit disorders can affect learning abilities which

can be influenced into disabilities such as, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. ADHD can also

be inherited from parents so children who are affected by BPA can pass their disability down to

their children affecting this next generation. Along with these disorders certain stages could be

altered or affected. Such as these developmental stages mentioned in class: the initiative thought

development, symbolic functioning, and psychodynamic theories. These help early childhood

cognitive theories.

Socioemotional development, the developing of a child’s emotional and social

interactions and patterns. While mentioning ADHD, ADHD can have a major impact on a child’s

socioemotional development through the prefrontal cortex. As stated from the book, the

prefrontal can develop more than 2 years later for children with ADHD. The prefrontal cortex is

the center of emotional functions. Thus, BPA can provide to slow down emotional processing

and resulting in a negative social interaction with other children. This could also slow down the

development of emotional expression and body language that increases in earl childhood

normally. Children with ADHD might also have to be manage their emotional and social patterns

more than a normal child. Children that have premature development also have behavioral issues
normally, early sexual activity, and early exposure to stress. Making BPA development after

emotional and mental health.

Physical development, the developing of a child’s physical features and body. The child

can be susceptible to premature development if exposed to BPA while a child. Premature

development can cause short statures in the long run and tall statures for their current ages before

normal pubescent ages. As well girls can experience a higher chance of obtaining breast cancer.

Also, according to studies, kids with ADHD can develop problems with their motor skills such

as handwriting or hand movement patterns. Lack of hand control can lead to sloppy writing or

lack of writing. From the notes, children start to develop fine motor skills drastically and with

attention deficit disorders and premature development, BPA can slow this down and maybe even

halt this progression for a period.

Families take a major role in the development of children as they provide the building

blocks for rights and wrongs, and morale recognition in the beginning. With BPA causing mental

and physical disorders, the family member must provide for the child in specific ways. From the

notes, the parents need to emotionally coach their children in what is negative and what is

positive. With a disability, a parent might try to provide too much positive reinforcement to

make them happy but result in incorrect emotion reactions when in public. Also with emotion

dismissing could cause the same effect but for a negative reaction instead of a positive in the

wrong situation. Could lead to emotional problems, then leading to social problems.

Environments also can play a major role when it comes to the situation of the child. If a

child has an attention deficit disorder or one such as, dyscalculia that is formed from BPA, the

child might be placed in slower speed math class and then placed in an environment with other

slow learners. There are positives to this such as, personal interactions with the teachers and a
slower speed so the child doesn’t fall behind. As well as other students that will have the same

problems to support each other in their problems. The negatives though would be disability

bullying and shunning. Kids in normal classes or a normal environment would typically try to

bully the child or exclude him for being “different” from the other children. From the book,

“boys are more likely to be bullies than girls, but gender differences regarding victims are less

clear” (Textbook 324). This would result in a major emotional instability and greater chance of

feeling lonely. This could also lead to a lack of friends and maybe even an attitude of contempt

where the child never wants to strive for more and stays where they currently are.

As mentioned in the previous section, bullying might occur to children who have

disabilities and in this case, disabilities caused by BPA. Bullying might make the child feel he is

in the lower ring of the social structure. He or she might feel as if they don’t belong with a

certain group and will feel excluded from events, programs, and social activities. This will cause

the student to be more anxious and socially withdrawn. The book mentions that children who are

socially withdrawn, anxious, and aggressive are more likely to be bullied. The book also

mentions that bullies seek to bully others to achieve higher social status or ranking while at the

same time placing the victim in a lower rank than they were. Social withdrawal might also lead

to loneliness and even depression.

Friendships and relationships are one key factor to an individual’s healthy social

interaction and emotional health. Friends usually develop through similarities between the two

children. With the social structuring placing the child with disabilities lower on the ladder, the

frequency of finding a friend are lower but not completely absent. A child with a BPA disorder

needs companionship. The book states that friendships provide ego support, social comparison,

affection, and intimacy, and physic support. Friendships help a child grow and develop with the
other children. A friend would provide a positive reinforcement to their negative environment

and offer support when they are down. Without this companionship, the child would lose social

interaction and possibly emotional stability. Placing them further down the ring of stature and

would rely heavier on the reinforcement from parents or older support systems rather than their

peers, providing social withdrawal.

BPA can take a toll on more than just the child’s beginning but also the end of their life.

With the disabilities affecting the short-term in the child they could also affect their long-term

life. Physical changes could provide more catastrophic outcomes when approaching middle adult

or late adulthood. Cognitive processes might prove to be even more difficult than they already

started out to be. As well as socioemotional efforts might take a major downhill impact when

approaching these later years.

The deterioration of the body when approaching old age has many theories and with

disabilities some of these theories can be sped up. From the book, “hormonal stress theory argues

that aging in the body’s hormonal system can lower resistance to stress and increase the

likelihood of disease” (Textbook 517). If a child prematurely developed from BPA then they are

more likely to use their hormones early in their life which would result in a lower system in late

adulthood. Late adulthood could be affected by attention deficit disorder, with ADHD the

prefrontal cortex is late to fully develop and deteriorates the most with age so deterioration

would be accelerated and cause brain damage or lose of emotional recognition. Adults with

reproductive disorders might face problems with having kids or finding a partner to have kids

due to their disability. Often premature development could also lead to early menopause and

mammary gland development. Neurological disabilities might lead to less exercise or mobile

activity and from the book, exercise is linked to longer longevity. Exercise can provide higher
prevention of diseases, improvement of treatment in diseases, cellular functioning, improved

immune system, improve body composition and reduce loss of motor skills, as well as reduce

stress levels.

Cognitive and Socioemotional development in older adults might become a problem for

neurologic disorders and attention deficit disorders. Neurological disorders are more frequent in

older adults and can cause sub category negative effects such as depression. Depression leading

to emotional negativity and imbalance. Attention deficit order older adults might face problems

with cognitive development and might face lower chance of finding a job due to lack of focus,

retention, and reaction in their mind. Implicit memory in ADHD older adults might deteriorate a

bit due to lack of focus and lack of attention. ADHD might also increase chance of forming a

type of dementia. From the book, selective attention is the attention someone gives to a specific

task which can be affected by ADHD and even dementia.

Cancer is the one of the leading causes of death in older adults. It’s also the second

leading cause of death in children from ages 5 to 14 according to the book. Exposure to BPA can

cause a fetus to be programmed for prostate or breast cancer in their later lives. Breast cancer is

one factor leading from mammary gland disorders that is caused by BPA. As well as prostate

cancer being cause by premature development in boys, while boys can still get breast cancer with

this same effect.

In conclusion, BPA, or bisphenol A can cause major effects on the child’s development and their

long-term life development and longevity. Canada’s ban on the chemical will hopefully increase

awareness. With the increasing in research in the chemical, hopefully the chemical will be

removed from our manufacturing systems to provide a safer product to our generations. As well

as stopping further disorders slowly and one chemical and mutation at a time.
 Works Cited

Santrock, John W. Lifespan Development. 15th ed. N.p.: McGraw Hill, n.d. Print.

16, April. "Chemical in Plastic May Harm Children." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 16

Apr. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2016. <http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/16/nation/na-plastic16>.