Mental health disorders among children and teenagers significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published this week by the Journal of theAmerican Medical Association, with teenage girls being the most at risk.
The studyexamined records from commercial insurance companies of over 1.7 million patients between the ages of 6 and 18 and classified insurance coding into the categories of anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, depression, and eating disorders.
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Each demographic category saw an increase in all four categories from January 2018 to March 2022.
In girls aged 13 to 18, “there was an immediate increase in the prevalence of all 4 diagnosed [mental health] conditions” from October 2020 to March 2022, with each increasing at a faster rate than pre-pandemic levels.
Eating disorders among teenage girls “more than doubled during the pandemic,” according to the findings. Although the other age and sex categories did not see as precipitous of an increase in eating disorders, each demographic category did see an upward trend for eating disorders from before the pandemic.
“Female youth, especially female adolescents, represented the most vulnerable population with regard to marked increases in the prevalence of [mental health] diagnoses during the pandemic,” the study’s authors note.
These findings correlated with those of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveyreleased by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February that found 57% of high school girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, with 30% of female respondents having seriously contemplated suicide.
Although the JAMA authors do not provide a causal mechanism that explains the rise in mental health disorders among children and teenagers, they briefly advise policy analysts to examine the effects of social isolation and social media on youth mental health.
Some theorize that children and teenagers were particularly vulnerable to loneliness due to school closures during the pandemic. Earlier this month, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a statement saying that the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis” across the United States.
Increasing time spent on electronic devices and social media could also contribute to this trend.
Another JAMA studypublished in February that examined screen time among children found that education and recreational screen interaction increased by over 25% from pre-pandemic levels. Murthy’s announcement this week issuing an advisory against social media highlighted that eighth through 10th graders spend an average of 3.5 hours per day on social media sites, with 14% of youths in this age bracket spending over seven hours per day on various platforms.
New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt hassuggested that the image-based social media, such as Instagram and TikTok, used more heavily by females as opposed to the collaborative gaming platforms used most by males, could explain the higher rates of mental health concerns among teenage girls, including body dysmorphia issues.
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Image-based platforms that cultivate likes and followers “can loom in a girl’s mind even when the app is not open, driving hours of obsessive thought, worry, and shame,” according to Haidt.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced a plan to increase access to mental healthcare resources in public K-12 education.
