The mental health of children and young people has continued to deteriorate during the corona pandemic. This is especially evident in the older girls. The number of overweight children and young people has also increased.
For the HBSC survey (Health Behavior in School-aged Children Study), initiated by WHO and conducted every four years, a total of 7000 Austrian school students completed an online questionnaire during a lesson between November 2021 and July 2022. At each school, one or two classes from groups 5, 7, 9 or 11 (excluding special schools) participated – so the young people were generally between 10 and 17 years old. That is why there are also individual assessments per age group and divided into boys and girls. There are no international comparison data yet – the aggregated figures from all participating countries will not be published until the end of 2023 or 2024.
Girls feel worse than boys
According to Rosemarie Felder-Puig (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH/GÖG), head of the study, the deterioration in mental health indicators already observed in previous studies was expected – to an even greater extent. “But the result is still not reassuring.” About 44 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys are often irritable or in a bad mood. 30 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys say they are often depressed.
In general, a trend runs through the study: while the boys have stable or slightly better values compared to the 2018 survey (with a few exceptions), the deterioration is clearly due to the girls. “The gap has widened significantly,” said Felder-Puig. This mainly affects the older girls. Although there are hardly any gender differences between 11-year-olds, the values begin to diverge considerably when puberty begins.
kids get fat
As a second point, in addition to mental health, Felder-Puig highlighted the significant increase in the number of overweight children. Based on their self-report, 17 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys are overweight or obese. In 2014 it was still eleven or 17 percent – the increase in numbers started before the pandemic and increased again during the Corona period.
At the same time, however, there are also positive developments: since 2018, fruit and vegetable consumption has increased among both sexes. “But if you add a bar of chocolate to that, it doesn’t help that much,” says Felder-Puig. At the same time, the consumption of sweets has increased significantly – especially among girls. The number of students who are physically active for at least an hour several times a week has also increased.
Bullying will decrease
Bullying in schools, which was much discussed a few years ago, has decreased considerably. For example, between 2010 and 2018, the proportion of students who saw themselves as victims of bullying fell from slightly more than 20 percent (boys) or slightly more than ten percent (girls) to eight or seven percent. Since then, the numbers have remained constant.
The Ministry of Health has projects running
The Department of Health is aware of the mental health and obesity issues. Jakob Weitzer of the Department of Health Promotion and Prevention emphasized that programs such as the “Wellness Pool” or “I can do it” on the health literacy of children and young people have been running for a long time. An overview of all projects related to psychosocial health will also be launched soon. There is also a program to educate school buffet operators on how to make their offerings healthier. The extent to which this will also be implemented is currently being investigated.
Source: Krone
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