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DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS ARE more common among young people who identify as sexual minorities than heterosexual youths, even from the age of 10, according to new research.
An observational study of 5,000 young people from 10 to 1 years of age in the UK, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, found youths in these groups consistently experience more symptoms of depression and report more self harm than heterosexual youths.
This is the case through their school years and into early adulthood.
Previous research found that annually between 2001 and 2014, on average across 10- to 19-year-olds in the UK, around 37 per 10,000 girls and 12 per 10,000 boys were treated for self-harm.
The findings suggest that sexual minority youths are four times more likely to report recent self-harm at ages 16 and 21 years than their heterosexual peers, and are at higher risk of depressive symptoms from as young as 10 years old.
“It is very concerning that despite changes in public perceptions and attitudes, sexual-minority youth remain at increased risk of long-term mental health problems,” said Dr Gemma Lewis from University College London, UK, who led the research.
Our findings underscore the importance of mental health problems before conscious self-identification and labelling of sexual-minority orientation. It is imperative that we find new ways to reach these adolescents and that they are able to access high-quality support services from a young age.
There is little research that has looked at when increased risk for these mental-health problems emerges and how it develops over time.
Lewis said the lack of sexual minority role models and “unquestioning acceptance of rigid concepts of gendered behaviour” should be challenged in schools and society at large.
“We also need to ensure that doctors and those working in mental health are aware of this inequality and recognise the needs of sexual minorities,” she said.
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It’s all the fault of privileged straight males I suppose.
@Cheapy Ryan: here comes the bad wagon… why not take a moment to consider if this was your child.
@Cheapy Ryan: how are your feelings hurt by this? I don’t know how you lads have the nerve to call anyone else a “snowflake”…
@Cheapy Ryan: no its the fault of uneducated bigots, colour doesn’t come into it.
As already said, maybe if it was your kid you wouldn’t be so fast to try make some silly smart comments
@European Bob: give it a rest, Bob.
@Chin Feeyin: It’s good to talk Chin. I’m here for you.
@Cheapy Ryan: I guess the Ryan Satire flight is passing overhead at high altitude. In fairness, it is the humourless hour and the first coffee hasn’t kicked in yet but I get it, you’re being facetious.
@Shea Fitzgerald: he’s being facetious, but it’s not coming from a place of good humour. It’s coming from a place of bitterness and mean-spirit.
@Shea Fitzgerald: You’re right Shea, I forgot we could laugh at childhood depreciation.
@European Bob: *depression
@Paddington C.: take a day off will ye
@European Bob and Paddington: I did say it is the humourless hour. And Bob, I think he was satirising the blaming of straight white males for so many things, not the woes of these young folks.
@Shea Fitzgerald: You think? I stand corrected so. I made my judgement on his previous comments on previous articles and his insistence that straight white males are the real victims. Apologies if I offended you, must get my morning coffee now…..
@Cheapy Ryan: Strawman alert
@European Bob: Yeah, do that. Relax no offence taken.
@Is Mise jay: “stop commenting on the journal” – every Journal commenter who can’t think of an actual argument to rebut somebody. Contribute or take a day off yourself.
@European Bob: oh, a new pseudonym going on again, how many times you gonna change your name to hide your identity, hon?
@Cheapy Ryan: Heartless comment.
@Brian Smith: Not as many as you baby
@DaisyMay: Bots can’t have children
Separate church and state and let’s get some proper sex education into schools. If the teacher isn’t up to it, let’s set up an unit that visits school. Pregnancy, sexuality and STDs should be an integral part of any teenager’s education. You can say it’s up to the parents but it’s clearly not happening.
That’s because youths who identify with this nonsense are unstable in the first place…get their heads out of their phones, learn how to be sociable and active and they’d be fine by and large
@Jimmy Boots: A bit harshly put, but there is a question to be asked about cause and effect. The article is pretty lacking in details. The summary of the actual study is interesting. It starts by saying: “At age 10 years, depressive symptoms were higher in sexual minorities…” Now I am not an expert in psychology, but I would be surprised if many children at 10 years of age were aware of the sexual orientation to the extent that it would be a cause of depression.
@CrabaRev: he is absolutely correct. If we exclude gay, lesbian and bisexual minorities, and look at the transgender umbrella (fluid, bigender, agender, etc), studies demonstrate that really high proportions have autistic traits, and also a history of childhood abuse. It is likely that underlying mental illness is manifesting as their gender confusion. Indeed in some cases switching gender is a way to escape what may have happened to them as the opposite gender. There is a radical minority of trans people pushing an agenda of total acceptance which is actually doing a disservice to the affected children.
@Jimmy Boots: I have experience of one child whose behaviour at age 11 was bizarrely hypersexual, he tied up some of the other boys and exposed himself. My impression was that he might have been abused or exposed to weird pornography. I think some totally normal people are naturally gay and some girls are just tomboys etc but others are profoundly disturbed and present as gay/trans, and we are in danger of mixing them up and missing important diagnoses.
@CrabaRev: I for one knew I was heterosexual before I was 10. I would assume lots of others knew they were homosexual. And maybe because it’s looked upon as something wrong with them by society it would cause more mental health issues. You really don’t need to be an expert to figure that out.
@Jimmy Boots: Take your own advice.. and change your avatar. You are not fit to associate with that great man.
Go outside and play football normal games not PlayStation apps and all that other c.rap on their phones it’s no wonder there’s mental health in young people get a gd hobbie make real friends not book of faces lol
While watching the ‘The Young Pope’ recently. He was asked what he wanted to be, when he was a child. He replied, ‘a child’.
Let children be children for as long as possible. A world of challenges will come soon enough. For now, let them live in their world, not ours.
@Jaci Black: When I was 10 we were using the word “gay” pejoratively. My teacher said she didn’t want us to use that word, and gay was “when a man loves another man”. None of us laughed and looking back on it our reaction was very accepting and natural. It didn’t strike me as strange at all that a man could love a man. That was all the information we needed. We did not need an LGBTQ activist to come in and talk to us about identity or sexuality for an hour- that would have disturbed us.
How TF can a one year old identify as anything that’s ‘other’
O Christ we all have our problems but just get on with it
have your say