Lifelong benefits of a nurturing touch

The more parents nurture their offspring, the more likely the children are to remain emotionally and physically healthy through old age.

That’s the conclusion reached by a team of researchers from the University of Albany and the University of Michigan who analyzed a survey of 3,000 adults. Participants who had not received enough emotional support from their parents in childhood were more likely to report poorer physical health as adults than those who indicated they had been given plenty of emotional support. The ones who hadn’t gotten enough nurturing were also more likely to suffer from depression or other emotional illnesses, said researcher Benjamin Shaw, an assistant professor of social behavior and community health at the Albany campus.

He said he was surprised by how long the connection seemed to last. The survey participants ranged in age from 25 to 74. The data were part of a broader U.S.-government-funded study in 1995-1996.

The survey asked participants to rate their parents’ involvement in six areas, including how much the parents had understood them and how much they had felt they could confide in them. The questions were about emotional support and did not address financial resources of the home.

The researchers also counted how many of 27 chronic health conditions -- including urinary problems, diabetes, stroke, hypertension and sleeping problems -- the participants suffered as adults. The researchers gauged emotional health based on the participants’ answers to six questions about their mental state in the last 30 days, including whether they had felt so sad nothing could cheer them or felt nervous, restless, hopeless or worthless.

The study was published in the March issue of Psychology and Aging.