Down the Generations (www.bbc.co.uk)

"In a sense, it doesn't matter from a policy point of view, whether bad health is transmitted down the generations through a biological mechanism, a social one or a mixture of both - because we largely already know how to fix it.

The good news is that even if you start life with a low stock of health, if you live in a society with good public health, you can, to some extent, build up your stocks as you go along."

This BBC radio show shares stories and research which are hopeful, horrible and fascinating. There's a lot about long-term and lifelong impact of early adversity, mainly in the form of early malnutrition, and how that is linked to increased rates of cancer, cardiac risk, obesity, depression and early aging as well as declines in cognitive abilities and employment - especially after 60).

As an adoptive mother, it's sobering to know that no matter how much love and nutrition I provide to my daughter, it doesn't mean that her earliest experiences of deprivation won't have an impact. They will. They do as those of us in the ACEs community know whether it comes to us, our children or to people we work with.

But there is some hopeful news as well at least when it comes to famine. For example, I learned something that surprised me (and the researchers) such how little early malnutrition impaired intellectual abilities at least in children, young adults and middle-aged people. It's true that there is some cognitive decline in those with early malnourishment when compared with those without but it didn't seem to appear until well into the retirement years. That's something

But of course, as we know from ACEs science, it's less common that there is only one type of adversity experienced (whether that is in childhood or in the community). Often, where there is one type of adversity there are other types as well.

Still, this was a fresh perspective with human interest stories, about the researchers, as well as those they studied. It's nice to hear about people working well into their nineties as was the case with one of the researchers.

Most exciting were discussions about how prioritizing a robust "stock of health" for all might be both protective and practical. While I'd love to think people will just want to rally to make sure all children are safe and fed and have a "good enough" childhood I tend to be more cynical. I believe policies that are practical and cost-effective and also happen to be good for kids have the best chances of being implemented. How can it be otherwise when so much healthcare happens in a for-profit setting?

It's not enough to make sure children have adequate nutrition but it's also not meaningless. Too few do.

Plus, making sure babies and children have decent nutrition isn't considered only a social justice issue but something that makes good common sense. Again, that's not exactly news - but it's nice to hear it being talked about in new ways and by people in other countries considering adversity a health threat not just a psych or social ailment. That shift has been a long time coming.

Plus, it emphasized the need for girls and women to excellent nutrition before, during and after pregnancy and not just as a feminist issue but as a practical one. It made me think of the quote often said by presidential nominee for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton:

"Women's rights are human rights are human rights are women's rights."

In other words, there are dangers and consequences to "under-investing in child nutrition" as well as ignoring ACEs science and adverse childhood experiences of all kinds.

For some of the subjects studied, early adversity (in the form of malnutrition) sometimes took decades to appear as disease or a health issue - yet it often did - even when experienced for relatively short amount of time in childhood.

It keeps me motivating to keep learning, caring and also to make sure I'm feeding my daughter as well as myself with as much food, love, safety and knowledge as I can.

I never get tired of the research and stories which help me understand the health consequences of adversity.

Preventing adversity is of course the priority but that's not always possible as many of us adults with a few or many ACEs know. I love learning about ways to promote health even after adversity and that there are at least some ways to improve health outcomes. Societal support in the form of strong public health is one. It matters.

Here's are two excerpts of the story as summarized on the BBC website.

As the Second World War drew to a close, the German army effectively blockaded parts of the Netherlands. Food supplies dried up and calorie intake fell to 600 per day in some areas. People starved - the onlyexample of a widespread famine in 20th century Europe. Babies born to mothers who were pregnant during the famine tended to have a low birth weight. And those children, as they grew up, had more health problems than those in the womb before and after the famine. That in itself isn't surprising. But what is surprising is that many of the ill-effects took decades to emerge. Babies who were born apparently healthy, and were still fine at 18, were more likely to suffer from diabetes and schizophrenia and cardiovascular problems in later decades. And by the time they reached their 50s, the famine babies were more likely to be unemployed.