Covid’s ‘lost generation’ may be more resilient than we think | Lucy Foulkes
The fact most mental health problems begin in adolescence doesn’t mean that most adolescents will suffer mental illness
If you’re ever going to experience a mental illness, it will most likely start in your adolescent years. One 2005 study found that about 75% of all mental illness starts by age 24; another from 2003 found that this number might even start by age 18. We have known this for some time, long before the pandemic began. Then Covid-19 erupted, triggering a fresh wave of headlines about young people’s mental health and a “lost generation”.
There’s good reason to be concerned. Initial evidence suggests that, in the early months of the pandemic at least, emotional problems increased on average in young people. This is unsurprising: lockdowns cause a great deal of stress for this age group, disrupting education and limiting vital contact with friends. Some young people will have been especially vulnerable, such as those who lost loved ones or spent lockdown in homes marked by conflict or violence.
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