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First-borns tend to be less healthy, study suggests

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, January 18, 2017

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First-borns tend to be less healthy, study suggests Research suggests that the prospect of having high blood pressure reduces with birth order and that the largest gap occurs between first-borns and second-borns. (Shutterstock/File)

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any studies imply that first-borns are exemplary in terms of education, IQ scores and earnings, but recent research by the Journal of Economics and Human Biology suggests that “there is no clear first-born advantage in health.”

The study, which examined the health records of about 400,000 Norwegians over a span of 25 years, found that in comparison to their younger siblings, “first-borns are less healthy in terms of physical markers such as blood pressure, triglycerides [a type of fat found in blood], and indicators of overweight and obesity”, reported netdoctor.co.uk.

The research also deduced that the prospect of having high blood pressure reduces with birth order and that the largest gap occurs between first-borns and second-borns. As a case in point, first-borns are 4 percent more likely to be overweight than second-borns, 2 percent more likely to be obese, 3 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 2 percent more likely to have high triglycerides.

(Read also: What you need to know about newborn photography)

To further justify this claim, the report reads, “second-borns are about 3 percent less likely to have high blood pressure than first-borns; fifth-borns are about 7 percent less likely to have high blood pressure than first-borns.”

According to experts, there are two main reasons that can be attributed to why first-borns are less healthy in terms of these physical markers. Primarily, “first-borns are, on average, lighter at birth than their siblings”. How this affects their health is because a lesser nutrient flow to first-borns in the uterus could have impacted their regulation of fat and led them to store more fats in adulthood. This is what is more popularly defined as “catch-up growth”.

As stated in the report, another overarching factor that affects health in first-borns is personality. It mentions that “first-borns are often perceived to be intense and career-orientated while later-borns are considered to be more laid back and creative”. That is, eldest children tend to be more stressed as a result of their driven and competitive nature and this might result in the prominence of high blood pressure and triglycerides. (nik/kes)

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