Some kids grow up in the same house their entire life.
Other kids, for one reason or another, end up bouncing from place-to-place for their entire childhood.
While most people can come up with pros and cons for each, a recent study showed that kids who move often do tend to struggle with depression more often than their sedentary counterparts.
In fact, moving affected mental health even more than growing up in poverty.
Their research compiled over a million records for Danish people born between 1982 and 2003. 35,000 of whom were diagnosed with depression as adults.
They found that people who moved more than once between the ages of 10 and 15 were 61% more likely to develop depression than those who stayed put.
Lead author Clive Sabel gave an interview to the New York Times about the results.
“Even if you came from the most income-deprived communities, not moving – being a ‘stayer’ – was protective for your health.”
Sabel claims his previous research showed similar outcomes.
“Even if you come from a rich neighborhood, but you moved more than once, your chances of depression were higher than if you hadn’t moved and come from the poorest quantile neighborhoods.”
The statistics hold even if children move from poorer to richer neighborhoods; still a 13% higher rate of depression.
Sabel has a hypothesis as to why this effect might be true.
“It’s at a vulnerable age – at that really important age – it’s when children have to take a pause and recalibrate. We think our data points to something around disruption in childhood that we really haven’t looked at enough and we don’t understand.”
Clearly, stability in early childhood is very important to who our children will become as adults.
Of course, sometimes life happens and change can’t be helped – but according to these results, you’ll want to be hypervigilant about checking in if and when it does.
If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.