Young Australians are struggling with stress and school related challenges, but body image is by far their biggest concern.
The survey found stress levels had spiked this year. When asked to rank their personal concerns from a list of 15 issues, 27.3 per cent nominated “coping with stress”, putting it in the top three, compared with 18.7 per cent last year.
Anne Hampshire, from Mission Australia, said that body image issues created stress for both genders.
“What came through in the responses was that young people are worried both about their personal body image and about how the media continues to promote a level of physical perfection that is neither healthy nor achievable,” Ms Hampshire said.
Carmen Acosta, also from Mission Australia, says the results show there needs to be more emphasis on education and programs to tackle poor body image.
“The work needs to continue past adolescence and the information and the support to young people should be also included or extended to post-school environments such as tertiary institutions,” she said.
From my experience in the classroom, body image is a huge area of concern among upper-primary school aged kids as well. The issue is a strong area of interest of mine, and an inspiration for my unpublished novel (which deals extensively with body image).
It is essential that we improve the way we deal with this very real concern.
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