Some children are more sensitive than others — quick to anger over minor disagreements, prone to violence and extreme impulses. Depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, panic disorders and addiction are among the diagnoses they receive, but the underlying problem, according to a new book, is anxiety. Regardless of family environment, economic background or upbringing, teen depression has surged 90 percent over the past five years while juvenile drug offenses have increased nearly 14-fold, suggesting children are breaking down in strikingly similar ways.
Daniel Keating, a developmental psychologist and professor at the University of Michigan, argues in his new book "Born Anxious" that these troubled children suffer from a broken biological stress switch. Over more than 20 years at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Keating and fellow researchers tracked the developmental trajectories of hundreds of thousands of people. They found that sustained exposure to stress triggers "stress methylation" — a process in which methyl groups attach to NR3C1, the gene that regulates stress responses, effectively suppressing its function. The period from pregnancy through the first year after birth is the most critical window, he argues. During this time, a child's stress-regulation system takes shape. If the mother endures severe stress from financial hardship, divorce, war or other causes, her cortisol levels can rise high enough to pass into the fetus's bloodstream. That surge of stress hormones can lock the child's stress gene in the off position, sending the infant into the world with its anxiety switch permanently on. The same biological changes can occur, Keating contends, if the primary caregiver faces similarly stressful conditions during the child's first year of life.
The consequences of a switched-on anxiety system extend far beyond childhood friendships and school performance. Into adulthood, such individuals remain more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, addiction and burnout. After middle age, the risks expand further — heart disease, immune system disorders and premature death all become more likely. In short, the stress parents experience during pregnancy and the first year of a child's life shapes not just the child's emotional state but their academic achievement, relationships, health and lifespan. Anxiety, Keating argues, is inherited just as surely as wealth or social class.
Keating identifies social inequality as the root cause that flips the anxiety switch. Structural conditions that force people into relentless comparison, competition and fear of falling — the product of extreme social disparity — generate chronic stress that affects health and longevity across entire populations. He cites the British Whitehall Study, which followed tens of thousands of London civil servants over more than two decades and found that those with lower organizational status and less control over their work had rates of heart disease, depression and premature death up to four times higher than their superiors.
Yet Keating does not leave readers without hope. Because the brain and the stress system are shaped by environment, they also carry the capacity for recovery. Secure attachment, consistent caregiving and school-based self-regulation training all offer opportunities to break the chain of anxiety. Institutional supports matter too: policies that reduce excessive work and stress during pregnancy and childbirth, parental leave, and social safety nets that ease income inequality can prevent parental stress from being passed on to the next generation, he argues.
carrier@heraldcorp.com
