It was interesting to read that age starting school affects longevity, yet skipping a grade had little affect on mortality. My family has discussed the effects of this, as my mom was asked if she wanted to skip a grade in middle school, but declined the offer. I think this goes along with what the authors mentioned about wanting to start your children in school earlier, in an attempt to encourage intellectual growth quicker than their peers; however it is interesting that this actually does the opposite of what the parents desire in doing this. I also was intrigued by the breast-feeding excerpt, as this is something that many people discuss related to health, but I had never thought about it’s effects on longevity. Along with the content I have read so far in this book, it is fascinating to realize how some behaviors or habits so early on in life can affect something so long term.
I am also impressed by how childhood experience or early life behaviors can have such an important and long lasting effect on our psychological and physiological well-beings. In one of my other classes it talked about how the number of neurons in our brain can be affected by absence of parental love in an early age. It is not just our biological development. In chap 5 it mentioned that people who committed suicide usually had a childhood lacking maternal care. And here it is interesting to see that only the age at which one starts the school matters, and skipping the school later will not affect anything.