Overlapping Tragedies in Youth Mental Health and Obesity
The mental health of youth is in serious decline around the world – a decline that is a mirror image of rising obesity. These overlapping tragedies may be independent. But common threads are easy enough to find. An editorial from the Lancet Psychiatry distills perspective from the new Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Youth Mental Health:
“Data continue to show worrying declines in young people’s mental health, with depression, anxiety, and overall psychological distress increasing. Poor mental health now ranks as one of the largest contributors to morbidity and wasted human potential worldwide.”
Individual Care and Environmental Concerns
Among the common threads, one stands out. In both tragedies, better care for individuals is absolutely necessary. But it is insufficient for reversing the increased suffering across global populations from both obesity and poor mental health. Our physical, social, economic, and cultural environment are driving these rising levels of distress.
In the case of mental health, the Lancet Commission points to environmental trends that are driving the decline in youth mental health:
“Insufficient action on climate change, an unregulated and unsafe digital world and social media environment, and social exclusion as reflected by insecure employment, reduced access to affordable housing, and intergenerational inequality have combined to create a bleak present and future for young people in many countries.”
Driving obesity trends, we know that increased stress and environmental exposure to endocrine disrupting drugs and chemicals are raising the risk of obesity for many people. Rising obesity prevalence comes from more than just the food supply.
The Pursuit of Solutions
Clearly, we need an environment that supports both the mental and physical health of young persons. Making that possibility become a reality is every bit as hard as it is essential for our shared future. But we might suggest starting with efforts to reduce factors that favor stark inequities.
The odds of good mental and physical health for youth around the world will surely improve if we can reduce the prospects for a bleak present and future – as the Lancet Commission has so eloquently documented.
Click here for the Lancet Commission report, here for an editorial summarizing it, and here for perspective from the New York Times. For perspective on the overlap of mental health and obesity, click here, here, and here.
Pit Tragedy, painting by L. S. Lowry / WikiArt
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August 18, 2024
