Feed Me NOW
Anxiety is one of the most common clinical diagnoses of youth in treatment. Ameliorative techniques for anxiety are often incredibly expensive and system-specific, meaning youth can only access them while in treatment. What if we could prevent this pervasive diagnosis? This edition of Know Your Sheet explores research demonstrating a link between maternal food insecurity in early childhood and anxiety and affective disorders.
The Article: Adverse Early Experiences Affect Noradrenergic and Serotonergic Functioning in Adult Primates (1994)
Authors: L. A. Rosenblum, J. D. Coplan, S. Friedman, T. Bassoff, J. M. Gonnan, and M.W. Andrews
Publishing Journal: Society of Biological Psychiatry
Research Agency/University: Department of Psychiatry and Primate Behavior laboratory, SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University
Funding Source: National Institute of Mental Health, the Phobia and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, and the Department of Psychiatry SUNY/HSCB.
In a Nutshell:
Non-human primate infants whose mothers were briefly exposed to food scarcity demonstrate lasting emotional disturbances related to anxiety and affective disorders in humans. They are subordinate, timid, clingy, less social and less independent. As adults they are a greater risk for anxiety and affective disorders. What the authors call adverse conditions in infancy, environmental stressors or resulting alterations in infant mother relationship, may produce exaggerated noradrenaline and limited serotonin responses in that persist into adulthood.
Why this Article Matters to you:
Food insecurity during early childhood correlates with behaviors associated with anxiety, and affective disorders, and is associated with long-term changes in serotonin and noradrenaline responses
Youth who are hypervigilant regarding finite resources, especially food, may be demonstrating long-term effects of food insecurity. The fact that these youth are willing to be restrained over discrepancies in meals (timing, portion, or expected content) is not nonsensical. Their neurocircuitry has been trying to establish food security and predictability since they were infants
Opportunities for Immediate Application:
Train staff in the behavioral adaptations associated with food insecurity
Don’t allow youth to be shamed for behavioral expressions related to survival. Identify the adaptation as youth express it and remind the youth why that adaptation is healthy.