The Spartan Way: Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.

by Joe De Sena

As it turned out, about a third of the kids they followed had been born into extremely adverse situations: families struggling with abject poverty, alcoholism, and mental illness. Many of these kids had developed serious learning and behavior problems by the age of ten. But here’s the surprise: When Werner and Smith published their findings five decades later, they were able to show that not all of the kids growing up at risk reacted to their stressors in the same way. In fact, one-third of the kids that the two psychologists ended up calling “vulnerable, but invincible,” displayed all the hallmarks of successful living. They didn’t just excel in school, they often exceeded those children who had grown up in more economically secure and stable homes. They grew into adults with good lives. None of them ever relied on social services or got into trouble with the law. They even had much lower rates of divorce and fewer chronic health problems by age forty than the more fortunate kids turned out to have. Werner and Smith wrote, “Their very existence challenges the myth that a child who is a member of a so-called ‘high-risk’ group is fated to become one of life’s losers.”