Cindy Alexandra Gomez Landaverde
17 years old
Kindergarten- 9th grade: Ricardo Miro private school
High school: Liceo Cristiano Reverendo Juan Bueno
Adolescence is a point in time where many transitions take place. It is a time where teenagers discover themselves, and how they relate to the world around them. People at this stage of life suffer changes that occur during puberty such as sexual maturation, changes in the body composition and a cognitive development. In case study of a teenager of seventeen years old, Cindy Alexandra Gomez Landaverde, will be analyzed her physical and cognitive developments through her process in adolescence.
Childhood is an important stage in people life that can influence inside their future way to live. The earliest years of our lives are crucial in many ways, including family income, education, and other social and economic factors affect health at every stage of life. (http://www.commissiononhealth.org/PDF/095bea47-ae8e-4744-b054-258c9309b3d4/Issue%20Brief%201%20Jun%2008%20-%20Early%20Childhood%20Experiences%20and%20Health.pdf). Cindy grew up in a women’s family where her mother, and two sisters where the ones that educated her. Cindy’s father had to leave the country when she was only one year old and even though they have not lived together or meet each other face to face, they have a good relationship. She is the youngest member of the family. She is 8 years younger than the older one and 7 years older than the middle one so, when she was born she become the spoiled child.
Cindy’s family regularly attends church since she was a child and all the members of the family used to go together to the church. Her mother and sisters used to be very active in attending her extracurricular activities such as workshops as well in the school. Cindy’s educational process was marked by her sisters’ influence. Cindy learnt to keep the discipline in school. She was pushed to study and try to follow the same discipline rate that her sisters had in their childhood. And it follows the same way until her adolescence.
The friend’s relationships that Cindy had in the childhood were limited because in her neighbor at that time was a very short group of children, in school her class group was around 10 to 15 members and workshops that she assisted most of the members were teenagers or adults. She became a shy girl and she depended too much on what her mother or her middle sister said. Cindy’s mother was most of the time at work so; her sisters had to be in charge of her, mostly the middle one.
Scientific advances in recent decades have demonstrated that social experiences in the first few years of childs' development, create physiological and behavioral foundations—adverse or favorable—for health throughout life (http://www.commissiononhealth.org/PDF/095bea47-ae8e-4744-b054-258c9309b3d4/Issue%20Brief%201%20Jun%2008%20-%20Early%20Childhood%20Experiences%20and%20Health.pdf).Cindy first experiences create a basis for her personality since she started her adolescence process.
The passage from childhood to adolescence is a transitional road in every person life. Throughout the process, each person develops attitudes and values that guide choices, relationships, and understanding (http://www.themediaproject.com/facts/development/index.htm). In this road through adolescence Cindy suffered different changes. At the age of 10 years her body started to change. She started the process that every girl follows through puberty. The growth of breast and body, appearance of hair in places in which she did not have before, and menarche (A Child's world: Physical development and health in adolescence). Cindy’s menarche occurred at her 14 years even though she was very tall and had a highly developed body despite her age, the genetic influence of her mother and sisters’ affected the timing of the menarche. The period in which it appeared was similar to her mother and sisters among 12 to 14. Effects of late maturation in Cindy pubertal timing affected her physiologically because at that time, most of her friends had already suffered different changes. She started to feel different to her friends and asked herself why those changes were not happening in her. Also, she started to suffer social pressure because a lot of people started to ask her about the changes that she was suffering and moreover, lot of people did not believe that those changes had not appeared at her age (13 years).
Many younger adolescents report frequent health problems, such as, headache, stomachache, backache, nervousness, and feeling tired, lonely o low(A Child's world: Physical development and health in adolescence). Cindy health problems are: sleep disorders, adolescents need as much sleep as in childhood, about nine hours. Cindy usually sleep around 9 or 10 hours at night; bad nutrition, adolescents eat fewer fruit and vegetables and more sweets, chocolate, soft drinks and other junk food. Cindy has an unbalance diet. She does not take the lunch at home because she in high school at that time so, she has to buy fast food in the cafeteria with a lot of cholesterol, fat, calories and low nutrients.
According to Piaget, adolescents enter the highest level of cognitive development (A Child's world: Physical development and health in adolescence). Cindy has developed the capacity to think abstractly and she can manipulate the information that she is acquiring in a different way that she did in childhood. She is able to take decisions by herself and she starts to think and have an idea of what she desires for live in future.
