How Drugs Can Affects the Health and Physical Development of a Child Essay

There are five general types of factors which can affect the health and physical development of children, one of these factors is lifestyle. Lifestyle factors are the way in which we choose to live and the things that we can change, this includes drugs. Drugs affect lots of people’s lives. Even legal drugs can be dangerous when people become addicted to them. In day to day life we are all faced with situations such as stress and negative feelings, some parents tend to use drugs as a coping mechanism.This can affect the children’s health and physical development because if the parent has negative feelings the child is more likely to have them too causing them to feel bad about themselves as well. The child could lead down the same road as the parent and take on drugs or lead to depression which affects the child’s emotional development.

Also, the child may feel neglected from the parent because the parents don’t look after them enough; the parent could stop looking after the child and choose not to accompany them, this would put the child at risk.The parent could cause harm to the child by: driving whilst under the influence of drugs; not putting the drugs in a secure place; risking them to witness drug use and some symptoms could cause the levels of childcare to change in the parent causing them to not care for the child and ensure the child is safe. The children will begin to feel like they don’t have a safe and secure home they could go to. They could become physically and mentally scared by what they have seen and cause them to hate their surroundings, their life and eventually themselves. This can affect a child’s emotional security.Drugs can affect children’s health and physical development because it can affect the ability of parents to do basic needs for their child.

For example: give them food. If a child doesn’t have a good diet, this means they are not getting nutrition that they need for their bodies to develop properly. If the child only has a diet based on unhealthy food they are more likely to gain weight and maybe become obese. They will limit the child’s chances at a healthy life, they will miss out on numerous of activities and adventures, causing the child to not have a proper childhood where they can enjoy themselves.