Key Issues Affecting A Child's Physical Development

For this assignment I will be discussing the key issues that affect a child’s physical development, there are many key issues relating to this, however I will only be focusing on two key issues which are how poor nutrition affects a child’s physical development and how the environment affects a child’s physical development. I will be focusing on a child under the age of 5 years.

Physical development is a process that begins as a baby and continues into late adolescence, this includes how the body grows and changes and the use of fine motor skills and gross motor skills within children, physical development in teenagers and late adolescence is the process of puberty and how teenagers’ bodies grow and change because of this. Physical development
what genes a child possesses from their parents can determine how a child grows and develops, for example, each person is supposed to have 46 (23 paired from the mother and father) however some may have 47 chromosomes as a biological error and this causes the baby to have down syndrome, because of this the child will have ‘learning difficulties, a characteristic facial appearance and poor muscle tone (hypotonia) in infancy.’ (https://www.genome.gov/11508982/chromosome-abnormalities-fact-sheet/) this means that the child will not grow and develop the same as other children, because of their weak muscles, the baby will not be able to reach physical milestones according to the normal rate of development, their physical development will be slowed right down because of this. Other genetics may slow down the rate of physical development, for example, asthma, a child may not be able to do physical activities for as long as their children because of this. Other children with different genetics may strive with their physical development because of the genetics they possess, it may be just because they are good at it however it may be opposite with other babies and young children. All children have a different rate of development and will reach physical milestones at different ages and this may be down to genetics. Brain based investigation expresses the importance of physical movement and activities within young children and states that ‘sitting young children down to learn in a formal way is not the most effective form of supporting learning’ (children and young people’s workforce, Maureen