Can education partake in the development of Mental Health conditions in teenagers?
To bring awareness to mental health issues, I will discuss with you about teenagers who have formed anxiety, depression, eating disorders such as anorexia and other conditions from secondary education.
However, to bring awareness to Mental Health, does anyone know what it is? Mental health is a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. The emotional well-being of teenagers can be dramatically changed by stress and pupils comments during educational hours. Generally, anorexia is the most developed mental health issue due to the emotional state of a pupil. During 2010, a female student was diagnosed with an eating disorder due to mental stress brought by peer pressure. She was entering her 4th year of secondary education when comments made by fellow peers began the development of anorexia, which she was only diagnosed with midway through the school year. Some of these comments drew on the fact of what a stereotypical teenage girl should look like, thin, tall and pretty, sadly this is the main cause for mental health in teenage girls.
How many pupils in one secondary school can develop Mental health conditions? Roughly, there are over 1000 pupils, and up to 250 of those pupils can generate at least one condition, if not more, that's one quatre of the school. Unfortunately, for every 3 out of 5 of those students, Mental health is brought by secondary education. Two decades ago, that figure was less than 50 pupils being diagnosed, a fifth of what it is now.
Being diagnosed with anxiety or depression doesn't just affect whoever's been diagnosed, but also those around them. My cousin developed anxiety during her time in secondary school, which affected her parents as well because she became so fearful of others opinions that she developed agoraphobia, does anyone know what that is? It's the fear to leave your house. She's now 25, living in Dudley, and the furthest she has gone from her house is Dudley zoo. Her anxiety had controlled her life for over 10 years, and this has affected her parents. They couldn't leave her by herself and haven't gone on a holiday for years, yet this is only one situation linked to anxiety.
Depression and anxiety are being detected more in teenagers now than 2001, which is very concerning to doctors, as the number of teenagers developing Mental Health issues is at its highest ever. What's even more concerning is that parents are spotting it in their sons, but not their daughters. Every 20 teenage boys that are diagnosed, 30 girls are left undiagnosed.
But how is all of this linked to education in secondary schools? Peer pressure and stress of work are the main culprits. By other pupils asking for the answers over and over then blaming the pupil they asked when the answer is wrong causes pressure to work harder and not to disappoint everyone else, hence the term peer pressure. But then, teenagers receive a lot of work during school hours which can stress them out. Some do all the work with ease, but there are some who struggle daily, which stresses their psychological state, causing anxiety or other conditions. Then the biggest issue with the mental state of pupils, stereotypes. Nerds, preps, athletes, there are more but these are the most common. If you were to look to the person next to you, what was your first thought of what group they would be in? Because after you've gotten to know them, that stereotype has changed into who you know they are. This has caused depression in pupils though because they never fit into that friend group or are the 'loner' as some of you say.
This presentation was to bring awareness to you about how all of us have a part to play in others mental health stability.
I recall a survey that stated something along the lines of many struggling teens dealing with higher levels of stress than many mental patients back in the 50s or 60s. What with the increased expectations from the crappy school system, adults needing to work more to sustain the family (thereby being unavailable to help the teen), and the sheer expensiveness of higher education (which makes it harder to be able to get any decent job), it’s no wonder the kids are being driven nuts!
Hi there BabeiHidds, and welcome to YWS! I'm MJ, and I'm stopping by to review your piece. I'll preface by saying if you have any questions about how this site works, you can ask me or someone whose name is in red, light green, and green, and they'd be happy to help.
I agree with Leutnant: you really, really need to fix the formatting. Not only did I have to slide right for every sentence, I had to bounce back to read the next one, and it was very disorienting and distracts from your essay.
Your beginning is definitely a very good way to start, especially how you lay out what you're going to discuss and then define your terms. This removes ambiguity, and the reader knows exactly what you're going to discuss.
Your examples are a good way to relate it to your readers, especially if they don't know anyone with that particular disorder and can't really get the full idea of how big it is. However, since you didn't tie in the story about your cousin to how that is a flaw in the education system, it seemed irrelevant and didn't help prove your point.
However, I think you misinterpreted the term 'peer pressure'. Peer pressure isn't pressure from your peers to necessarily get answers right in class, but rather to behave a certain way, which I suppose could technically refer to peer pressure, but that's not usually how the term is applied.
And then as my final note, I would recommend adding in something about how this will affect the future. Maybe you could point to a study that suggests that people with mental health disorders will be permanently impacted, or show that maybe work declines for those with mental health issues, or some other study that drives home how important it is to treat and address this problem. You've already proven that there is a problem, but why should we do something about it? Even if you think it's self-explanatory, it can be a very strong ending if you use a call to action to motivate the reader to get involved and do something.
That's all I have for you today! If you have any questions/need any help navigating this site, I'd be happy to help you to the best of my ability. Keep writing, and I'll be around to review! Have a blessed afternoon 
Best wishes,
MJ
Hello! Welcome to YWS, we're happy to have you! 
I'm not sure how the formatting got so wonky on this for you. I've never seen a posting where you have to scroll over so much... I reformatted it for you so it's hopefully a little easier to read (don't worry I didn't change anything else)
I work in mental health and talking about mental health and the factors that lead to mental health issues in people is obviously a very important thing to talk about. This piece strikes me as an essay that one might write for school, and I think it's a great topic to try to educate people about. However, I think your scope is too big for this essay. Education impacting the mental health of teens is a HUGE topic. Like books have been written about it. You're writing a short essay on the topic. It's fine to write a short essay on the topic, but try to tone your scope way down.
You mention three mental health disorders in your opening statement. All of them are very complicated issues. Maybe for the scope of your essay focus on one. Then education as a whole is another big topic and you mention lots of factors that contribute to the decline in mental health of students. Maybe for the scope of your essay focus on just one factor. So for example, How does social media impact depression in students? Or, how does inclusion in peer groups impact anxiety in students? Or, how does stress and work load impact eating disorders in students?
Then in the body of your essay you'll have more space to really dig into that issue and find some good evidence to support your claim. Try to shy away from personal anecdotes and rather focus on outcomes of research studies to backup your claims.
Overall, important topic and I'm glad you're trying to raise awareness about it, just try to narrow your scope a little more so you can really get into your topic and flesh it out Let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything I can do to help you get used to the site!
You ought to do something about that formatting. It's not very good. The font is nice, but having to scroll horizontally is unpleasant at best.
I'll look past grammar issues because those can be fixed quite easily (and because I could accidentally point out issues that aren't there), and instead I'll be looking at the meat of your essay, and whether or not it achieves what it should achieve.
You start with a question which you go on to answer, and that's a good essay setup overall. In the third line, you mention the story of one individual. While it is good to have more personal examples, if you wish to make a professional essay about a problem of this scale, it is best to find a greater sample size. You also mention that heavy criticism from fellow students caused the onset of anorexia. This requires citation. If it is a public case and an expert has commented on it, make sure to include his comment.
The next line is good at first. You mention the average number of students who develop mental health issues in a standard secondary school (citation needed yet again). You move on to explaining the core issues of anxiety disorders before mentioning the multiple plausible causes for a higher rate of diagnosed students per year. Perhaps it is because more disorders are known to us? Have standards for a diagnosis changed? What has changed in the education system?
Adding the story of your cousin is okay, but I don't see it being linked to the education system in any concrete way. See if you can link the two together somehow.
The next part is actually quite interesting, as it ties in with another issue of today. Higher rates of depression and suicide in males. Don't forget citation though. Perhaps you could try to see how the education system may or may not be linked to this issue.
The last part might be problematic. See, you mention a link between higher rates of anxiety and depression amongst students and higher work loads or stereotypes. However, whether or not these things are linked is very debatable, as stereotypes were arguably far more common four decades ago, and yet mental health issues were not as prevalent. I'd rework this part a bit, and find some other potential causes.
Disclaimer: I ain't no mental health expert, nor am I an essay expert. But I have written plenty of essays before (and rather successful ones at that), so hopefully this is of some use.
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