Big Babies Fare Better

By Neal Anthwal

There’s something to be said for having a healthy diet, as there is for having access to decent medical provisions. There’s even more to be said for eating well and being well doctored when pregnant, not only for the mother, but also for the future life of her child.

New analysis of over 35 years worth of data from the University of Michigan has revealed a link between birth weight and success in later life. To pluck a random fact out of the research (that is to say, to quote the headline stat of the press release; this is in depth journalism ladies and gentlemen), a child born with a weight of less than 5.5lbs, about 2.5kg for metric fans, are a third more likely to drop out of high school than their bonnier buddies, and their average yearly earning will be 15% less.

On the face of it, this seems like a fairly startling correlation, evoking all the mess associated with the publication of the Bell Curve, which, using statistics and IQ tests, made the massively flawed conclusion that the economic elite are cleverer than the rest of us. To paraphrase the late Stephen Jay Gould, this was complete balls.

However, when you look at the socio-economic situation of the parents, things start to make more sense. Often these children are born to parents with low incomes and, this being a study from the US of A, no health insurance.

So the lessons for us all are: a) that we need to look after our expectant mothers, otherwise there is a vicious circle of poverty waiting to further consume the next generation, a jolly old thought I’m sure you’ll agree, and b) never to jump to conclusions about society when looking at statistics, but I think that we all know that by now.

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