Impact of Family Struggles on Mental Health

Family meals

Adolescent Health: Family dinners and mental health – sample of 26,000 adolescents in Canda – self -reported data. Included frequency of family dinners, parent-adolescent communication and mental health, including internalizing and externalizing problems, emotional well-being, prosocial behavior and life satisfaction.  Frequence of family dinners reduced internalizing and externalizing problems and increased emotional well-being, prosocial behavior and life satisfaction. The effect was independent of gender, grade level, family affluence.  Family communications explained 13 to 30 percent of the effect.  The impact was “dose-dependent,” which means the more family dinners the greater the impact – which usually considered a good sign of cause and effect.

Canadian Family Physician:

Review of the effects of family meal frequency on psychosocial outcomes in youth

Reviewed 1,783 studies and analyzed 14 based on reliability. Concluded that frequent family meals were inversely associated with disordered eating, alcohol and substance use, violent behavior, feelings of depression and thoughts of suicide. Frequent meals increased self-esteem and school success. Females showed the biggest benefits. 

National Child Traumatic Stress Network

• Most abused or neglected children have a hard time establishing health attachment to a caregiver
• Lack of attachment increases vulnerability to stress, controlling emotions, reacting
• Trauma history affects relationships, friendships, relationships to authority figures
• Childhood stress affects development of immune system responses to stress, overreacting to threats, 
• Neglect and abuse lead to chronic physical problems, including headache.
• Also risky behaviors like smoking, substance use, eating, obesity
• Also difficulty managing emotions. Become vigilant, guarded, defensive and can’t self-calm
• Also higher risk of dissociation, which mentally separating themselves from experience, detachment from their bodies and loss of memoris.
• Easily triggered, reduced impulse control, intense reactions, rigid, overcontrolled, unusually compliant, spacey, detached, high risk behaviors, illegal behaviors
• Cognition – difficulty thinking clearly, reasoning or problem solving. 
• Tendency to be other directed, self-blame, shame, low self-esteem, poor self image and trouble feeling hopeful since they have learned to operate in survival mode. 

Family burden, family health and personal mental health

• Edel Ennis & 
• Brendan P Bunting 

BMC Public Health volume 13, Article number: 255 (2013)

The economic and moral implications of family burden are well recognized. What is less understood is whether or how family health and family burden relate to personal mental health. This study examines family health and perceived family burden as predictors of personal mental health, taking personal and sociodemographic factors into consideration.

Shifting From Survival to Supporting Resilience in Children and Families in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for Informing U.S. Mental Health Priorities

This commentary contextualizes potential mental health outcomes for children during and after the COVID-19 pandemic within the risk and resilience literature. Individual, familial, and community-level factors that may increase risk for mental health challenges for children as well as factors associated with positive adaptation in the face of adversity are considered. We highlight the value of considering children’s resilience within a systemic perspective by considering family-centered approaches including both short-term and long-term evidence-informed mental health practices. 

Impact of Family Meals

• Long term health – 17,000 people assessed for ACES – 64% at least one of those. Relates to smoking, unprotected sex, heart disease, cancer, early death
• Annual cost of child abuse and neglect 104 billion, or 284 million daily in 2007 dolalrs.  – another study put cost at 124 billion annually – or 1.3 million per case in medial, social, productivity costs – those were 1800 fatal cases.  For 600,000 non fatal, cost was 210,000 per victim. 

Why Survival Mode Isn’t the Best Way to Live

Spending too much time in survival mode has its consequences.

A frequent stress response and overexposure to stress-response hormones can take a toll on the body, take a toll on our emotional health, impact our relationships, lead to a number of medical issues, and increase risk for anxiety and anxiety and depression. As with all things, too much of this good thing, or our body working to protect us and help us survive, can actually become a bad thing.

Surviving in Crisis Mode: The Effect of Material Hardship and Social Support on Emotional Wellbeing Among People in Poverty During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a sudden economic crisis that led to increases in hardship and poverty. Motivated by the concern that people living in long-term poverty have few reserves to draw upon in times of crisis and may experience severe consequences, this study focuses on the association between material hardship and emotional wellbeing among people in poverty. The data were collected in two waves of telephone surveys during the pandemic. Participants for the study were recruited through social service departments in six cities in Northern Israel. The findings show that COVID-19 increased material hardship, and that material hardship has detrimental effects on the four measures of emotional well-being selected (stress, anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms). Informal social support has positive effects on emotional well-being but it does not counter the negative effects of material hardship. Policy implications are discussed.

Material hardship and food insecurity act as stressors found to have detrimental effects on emotional wellbeing (e.g., Bierman & Scieman, 2020; Galea, 2019; Kang et al., 2021; Sano et al., 2021; Santiago et al., 2011; Siefert et al., 2004). Social support has been found to buffer but not eliminate these negative effects (Chang et al., 2020). Less is known about how a sudden increase in material hardship affects emotional wellbeing in that population. 

Our findings show that COVID-19 increased material hardship and that material hardship affected emotional wellbeing among people living in poverty in Israel’s Northern region. We created three measures of hardship, by number, chronicity and type. As expected, we found that the number of hardships had a negative effect on emotional wellbeing. Relatedly, we found that people who, despite the crisis, succeeded in paying household expenses both before and after COVID-19 began, showed lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, than others. Our findings thus support our expectations regarding the detrimental effect of long-term, chronic hardship. The highest levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms were manifest in the group that had difficulty meeting household expenses both prior to and after the start of the crisis. We can thus conclude that the long-term constant need to cope with material hardship has negative effects on emotional wellbeing among people living in poverty.

The Mental Health Crisis Within the Mental Health Crisis

Drew Altman
Published: May 22, 2024

Kaiser family foundation – 2022 urvey – healthcare in America – 

• 28% of Americans say they’ve had to take a painful step for a family member a threat to themselves or other.
• 21% said they or a family member had overdosed and required an ER visit.
• 14% said they or a family member had lived on the street due to mental health issues.
• 16% said family member experienced homelessness due to mental health problem
• 8% had a family member with an eating disorder requiring hospitalization.
• 26% said a family member had been cutting themselves or other self-harm
• 16% had family member who died from suicide

About half of families experience one or more severe crisis – related to mental health. 

40% say crisis had a major impact on the family relationships

20% say a serious impact on family finances.