Study: Grandparents who babysit live longer
In this article it focuses on the study whether grandparents who babysit live longer. The article mentions that grandparents who take care of children it keeps them physically active, helps relieve stress, but only if they are not over doing it and crossing the line. In the study it is said to give them healthy benefits keeping them alive for longer. Therefore I looked up on google scholar “Berlin Aging study” and took me to this article:
The article in the conclusion section presented that there were limitations due to the major reason of cause and effect. The studies could not prove the cause and effect, “We can’t say from these findings that the provision of care is directly responsible for a longer life”. Which then limits the cause of death, and whether the researchers collecting the data looked further into each individuals overall physical and mental health. Also another huge factor to the limitations of the data was the socio-economic influence. The people in the date were all from the same area, and around the same age (70 and older). Age, race, ethnicity, income, and education all have an influence on health so this can ultimately change the results. Therefore cause and effect of whether grandparents will live longer is hard to come up with an absolute answer.
In the original article Dr. Ronan Factora of the Cleveland Clinic said, “you want to make sure that you find that right balance where you are doing what you can to stay active, doing good for the folks that you’re helping out with, but don’t too much where you get to the point where you’re overly stressed”.
From this article found from google scholar, I then noticed under the ‘Link to the Headlines’ portion that brought me to this website
The article brought up the different groups of seniors. One group who provided support for friends, neighbors, and then another group of seniors who did not babysit or help their friends, neighbors or provide any care to other people. They concluded “after accounting for grandparents’ age and general state of health, the risk of dying over a 20-year period was one-third lower for grandparents who cared for their grandchildren, compared with grandparents who did not provide any childcare.”
The outcome of the article did not provide enough information about whether grandparents babysitting leads to a longer life expectancy. From the research and the information found, there are limitations to the data and it’s challenging to figure out the cause and effect of this theory. The researchers and the people who created the study still do not fully understand the concept but there is proven to be a longer life expectancy for older individuals who help take care of friends, neighbors, grandchildren, join clubs, etc.