INTERESTING TIMES

"While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency.  In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everyone on board, and if that happened every month, month in and month out, the number of people killed still wouldn't equal the number of women murdered by their husbands and boyfriends each year."
-p7 in The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker 

Of course we already knew it, but here's scientific documentation of the relationship between the hardships experienced by a child to severe obesity, physical inactivity, depressed mood, and suicide attempts as well as ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic bronchitis or emphysema, history of hepatitis or jaundice, skeletal fractures and poor self-rated health.

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study:
http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0749-3797/PIIS0749379798000178.pdf

I found this by way of Mercola, and the discussion in the comments is interesting:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/1/17/scientific-proof-that-your-childhood-traumas-are-a-major-factor-in-your-all-your-illnesses.aspx

( study abstract behind cut )