British teens - especially girls - the unhappiest in Europe

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The charity said its findings reveal a 'deeply worrying picture around wellbeing and happiness' among teenagers, adding: 'Alarm bells are ringing.'

A quarter of British 15-year-olds report having poor life satisfaction, the highest rate amongst 27 European countries polled and almost 20 percentage points higher than in Holland.
Among UK teenage girls, almost a third report low life satisfaction, compared to one in five across Europe, the charity found.

British girls aged ten to 15 are 'significantly less happy' with their life, appearance, family and their school than the average boy, with life satisfaction scores declining in girls but stable among boys.

The Children's Society said it is 'particularly troubling' that the gap between boys and girls is widening. Between 2015 and 2022 happiness levels among 15-year-old girls in the UK have also declined more sharply than the European average.
Data from the Good Childhood Report found that 22.6 per cent of girls reported being unhappy with their appearance in 2021/22, compared to 9.2 per cent of boys.

One teenager said their peers often feel they need to 'change' themselves to be accepted, because people won't 'acknowledge you or look at you' otherwise. They said people had to 'look a certain way to be accepted'.

The report said that the dissatisfaction relates to a range of factors including food deprivation, NHS waiting lists for mental health services, bullying in schools and levels of physical activity – with the UK having the fifth highest rate of pupils reporting no physical exercise.

It also found that the 'endemic' level of school absence in some age groups has a 'dramatic' effect on attainment and resulting life satisfaction.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13790299/British-teenagers-unhappy-Europe-quarter-15-year-olds-UK.html

Wow. That's bleak. 🙁

I can relate to this as a parent of a teen dd. She worries constantly about her appearance, weight, what others think, social made, not being cool etc. and she doesn't even have the risk factors mentioned. She plays sport at a high level, is academic, has friends, loving family etc. so the impact on those less fortunate than her must be even more significant.

Social media is a total nightmare, especially for girls. Regardless of having stable and loving conditions in their life. Do not give children smart-phones before they are 14. We need to get back to dumb phones.....which are used primarily for contact in an emergency......no internet scrolling etc. It is an epidemic........young people walking along the street and even crossing roads and they do not look up from their screen.......and many are also further insulated from the world with headphones.

Well l'm 20 and sometimes unhappy. I don't know if I'm going to be "accused" of anything sinister, but one major reason is because we're not part of the EU anymore!

I blame social media. Its absolute poison. All these girls do is compare themselves to these instagrammers who claim to earn 30k a month, live in exotic locations, fly 1st class and are showered in gifts 24/7.

4 of the 5 teen girls living in my street are not going to school! 2 say they are trans and have dyed their hair blue, 1 has been badly bullied and refuses to go, 1 has never even seen a school - I fear for the future of our girls.

Jonathan Haidt has a lot to say about the influence of social media on children - and none of it's good:
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/technology/article/can-this-man-get-gen-z-and-the-rest-of-us-off-their-phones-bm75rmcxx

Decca Aitken who interviewed him, then persuaded her sons and some of their friends - including a couple of girls - to give up their phones for a month. The results were fascinating reading. It increasingly seems that girls and social media are a toxic mix and the negative impact on their mental health is significant.

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/what-happened-when-i-made-my-sons-and-their-friends-go-without-smartphones-vpcnbj58d

'not a social contagion'

God, that is bleak, indeed.

@NPET my teen dd is still hopping mad about Brexit. She has German cousins, one of whom is at university in another EU country and she is hopping mad that she won’t have the right to move, study and work freely in the EU. It is something her friends talk about a lot - she has school friends whose parents settled here from other EU countries and she’s so jealous of the rights their EU passports grant them. She has dreams to go interrailing and work in Europe, her school teaches European languages and she feels that Britain has let her down by reducing her choice and life chances. It has alienated her from British life, to be honest.

Aside from that my dd is mostly content though definitely not happy about her appearance. I think she is lucky to be in a good state girls school where there is a lot of positivity about what girls can achieve.

Totally. Wasn't sure of the reaction here but I agree. Brexit has severely limited our lifestyle choices and chances. We're back to being an island fending for itself.

Why are girls being so petty about appearances? Do you have to tick all the beauty standards list to fit in? Brows, lashes, nails, hair, clothing, figure?

I think teens are just addicted to their phones & not running around in teen tribes being weird together.

We need to treat a generation for screen addiction.

Phones, social media and apps are literally designed to make you addicted to them. We can't blame children for being susceptible for that. You're putting blame in the wrong place.

It's a desperately sad situation. I note the comment about us being less active. I was very involved with women's team sport for over 30 years and saw (and experienced) first hand the immense good it does in women's lives. Unfortunately I had to walk away after males started being permitted to play women's sport.

It's sad there was recently a thread about young men / boys and a theme seemed to be that they suffered from being socially awkward and not being able to interact with others.

And then today, parallel to the survey results in OP, an article implying that for girls it is their "toxic" friendship networks that make them so unhappy.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/worry-daughter-toxic-friendships-experts-3247111

Still the 2.2 family in that picture. Sad in a changing world. 1/3 of couples get divorced nowadays?

Yea, feel sorry for ALL children trying to navigate this new reality. Parents too.

Why are girls being so petty about appearances? Do you have to tick all the beauty standards list to fit in? Brows, lashes, nails, hair, clothing, figure?

^

Er, this isn't new. It was exactly like that in the 90s when I was growing up.

Phones and Internet aren't unique to the UK but are an easy target to point the finger at.

Surely a huge part of it has to be lack of decent jobs without university, which comes with a shed load of debt. Even with a university education many jobs still aren't greatly paid like teaching or nursing (traditionally female occupations)

The prospect of never being able to buy a house. And working to they are 90 before landing in a nursing home.

If it is to do with beauty and looks then is being overweight or obesity got something to do with it.

What about the whole 'trans' boys in female spaces Girls being gaslit that Bobby is a girl be kinds and strip off in front of him.

What about the school culture, forced to wear blazers no autonomy to remove if they are too hot.
The high pressure in schools to sit exams etc.

Girls in other countries must have the same access to phones and insta. I don't believe it's just phones that are the issue.

And in Dubai it's not only gifts they're showered in.

Agree with both of you (NPET and SpringKitten). Mine also have US citizenship (born there) and Canadian citizenship (via their dad), but nothing can console them for losing EU citizenship. They initially threw their weight behind the idea that Scotland could become independent and rejoin the EU, but now that that had flatlined they're a bit at sea. This doesn't necessarily explain the female vs male discrepancy within the UK (which I think are an absolutely predictable result of the misogyny there and everywhere) but definitely a huge factor among girls internationally.

There is some hyperbole in this, but:

I don't think most teens are looking massively towards house buying and retirement age.

I do think the general culture that has allowed the trans explosion is at play.

I also think that although other countries' teens have phones it may well be that culturally we allow more use / freedom than elsewhere in Europe. There must be studies.

I do think GCSEs pressure and high stakes will be contributing.

(I remember reading once that in eg Spain they give young kids more freedom than we do, but as they grow up they bring them in tighter to more organised activities. The total opposite to here.)

Worrying. Similar thread on mn also. By why uk any worse than any other European country? I can't see that any of the reasons really explain why the uk is worse than other countries.

It is my perception (has always been, even before phones) that teenagers in Europe seem more like children than teenagers in the UK. I can’t put my finger on it, but if you see big groups of foreign schoolchildren in London, they are dressed more casually and still seem to be in school mode. I’m currently in western Europe on holiday and don’t recall seeing girls here in heavy makeup, lashes and the long wavy hair like is common to see in the UK.

I wish to read more about this survey. Where was it conducted and how many children replied. Both my ds's didn't participate! They are happy. Ds1 is going back to uni next week and enjoying Italy. Miserable he is not!

When asked in our 2024 survey .......

Data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 enabled us to see how the wellbeing of 15-year-olds in the UK compared to that of their peers across Europe.

Surveyed who? 23 people from the street? Oh purlease.

I was out last night with friends, both their girls had good gcse results and are looking forward to 6th form. I don't see the unhappiness described in this report in their lives.

In my younger ds's year (15 year olds, as apparently surveyed for the survey) boys are out riding their bikes, playing football, girls out playing sports, gymnastics whatever, off on holiday with their mum and dad. Yeah we have problems in the uk, woeful lack of funding to the nhs for young people's MH support. But to say they are the unhappiest in Europe? Really?