'There is an urgent need to update adult thinking to catch up with the reality of teenagers’ lives'

A huge spike in mental health concerns among young women means that almost half of young British girls aged 17 to 21 have needed mental health support but are struggling to access it

Almost half of British girls aged 17 to 21 have needed help with their mental health, according to findings published today from the Girlguiding 2015 girls’ attitudes survey. The results suggest that mental wellbeing is a major area for concern, with worries starting from as young as seven and escalating as girls get older.

Self-harming tops a list of health concerns for girls aged 11 to 21, closely followed by smoking, mental illness, depression and eating disorders. The results suggest that these concerns have changed dramatically over the past five years. In 2010, girls’ top three health concerns were binge drinking, smoking and drug abuse.

There are many contributing factors at play. The world has changed an awful lot in the last 10 to 15 years for children, and there are so many different pressures – pressure to do well at school, pressure to look a certain way, sexual harassment, sexual pressure – they create the perfect storm.

I also think things like social media can play a big part. When I was at school, we didn’t have smartphones, so we could switch off, but now you’re constantly switched on and people are pressured to have a certain persona. I think mental health is a serious issue for girls and boys, but people can be particularly nasty to girls online and, with the pressure to look a certain way in particular, it can be really damaging.

We need to help children to have more resilience and cope in the face of challenges. It would help to open up discussions so people are happy to talk about mental wellbeing and health. There’s so much stigma attached to it that people can’t talk about it until it’s too late and they’ve reached breaking point.

We also need to have these discussions in a safe environment where girls can ask the questions they can’t ask anywhere else. I think it should be part of the curriculum and people like teachers and frontline staff should have training to know how to talk to young people about these issues.

At a school near me, there was a sexting incident, and when the photos were spread around the teachers suggested she shouldn’t have taken the pictures in the first place instead of dealing with the crime.

Girls are whistled at and shouted at in the street in their school uniforms; it’s just another pressure that makes them conscious of how they’re looking and what they’ve done to get that attention. In fact, it’s not about what they’ve done at all, but they don’t have the confidence to challenge it. What kind of a world is that?

Continue reading...