What makes a healthy person?
Exploring the correlation of mental and physical health in teens, we start to understand how teenagers view and are affected by the world around them. The mental health of teens is decreasing by the minute due to an excess of life stressors; social media, school, social pressure, all of these factors working together to make the teenage experience a roller coaster ride to an uncertain end. Affecting physical health, teens are unknowingly setting themselves up for inevitable health issues by pulling that procrastination all-nighter or that midnight fast food stop.
The total health of a person is a culmination of physical and mental health - and the rapid changes teenagers are going through both internally and externally is a direct reflection of that. Physical health is unconditionally affected by the way one thinks; it affects self-image, care of one’s self, and alters the brain at a chemical level as well. How do we combat that? With techniques of positivity that offer tranquility and quiet confidence, and disregarding the people in the world who are trained to judge.
High school students are not the people on tv, social media, or any screen in the media spotlight as our world transfers online. The mind of a teenager is a mysterious swamp of emotions, pressure, and confusion while trying to perform in excellence, and figure out who they are. An explosion of responsibility is handed to every teenager, whether they are ready for it or not. No breath of air can be swallowed before another idea of who they should be is shoved down their throat.
Transitioning the importance that people place on physical health onto mental health will most definitely help all aspects of life, including physical health.
Talking with Doctor Susan Swierc, a clinical psychologist, she states that “feelings are really the bridge, connecting our body and our mind”. She has found that health is a composite of four factors : physical, cognitive, emotional, and social. Through these pockets in the mind, the world makes its mark on the way thoughts fire.
Teenagers are changing both internally and externally with hormones, their minds are malleable beyond comparison. It's almost like learning how to talk, teenagers are learning who they are. This mental fluidness and potential for change is called Neuroplasticity — “literally the neurons and the way that our brain operates is flexible”(Swierc). The elastic nature of the brain opens up a wide variety of opportunities in the brain for thoughts and motivated thinking. However, often it happens that one gets stuck on a certain thought of negativity towards one's self, and it is very difficult to separate the brain from the waterfall of emotions that come after the initial idea. This type of overwhelming thinking constricts the opportunities available for the brain. It also causes a rush of “risk-taking behavior” to achieve that fictional goal, whether it be a certain physical image or wanting to be perceived differently. A good example of this rush is the binging and purging disordered eating habit; the rush of desire for food, juxtaposed with the rush of wanting the results of not eating.
The way we perceive ourselves is based on our identity and how the foundation of our life has been set in place. And as our bodies start to grow up, self-image and sense of identity are trying to keep up, so it's hard to start decorating yourself how you want when your body, on a fundamental level, is constantly shifting.
School places mounds of social pressure on teenagers to fit in, and to be accepted — (a natural feeling). However, cattled into one school, despite the desperate differences, teens receive endless nonverbal communication from peers. This dumping of information, stirs emotion in the social part of the brain because thoughts like ‘did they smile at me?’, ‘did they turn towards me?’, ‘why did their voice sound like that?’, causes the overthinking and self-doubt related to negative thinking. Dr. Susan Swierc says, “60-70% of the messaging we get from our social world, is nonverbal”. So while school is about learning, the result is a consistent flow of hidden judgment placed upon one’s self.
“You're not cool if you’re sober” - Dimitri Govertson-Donaldson (17)
When asked if it was common for Dr. Swierc’s patients to struggle with self-image, “For teenagers, it's everyone”. Your brain is looking for answers for what is happening to and around you, and that is the job of thinking. When an immediate answer is not available, the brain doubles back and start to think ‘why didn’t I do well, oh it must be because I'm not this, or I'm not that”
“I put on a fake personality to try and please people,” says Keegan Twigg, a junior at Hellgate Highschool. While teenagers are trying to develop their knowledge and train their thoughts, they are also pressured into how to look and act a certain way. In a poll taken at Hellgate Highschool, 55.6% percent of students worry about how others see them most of the time. The high school environment is not a healthy place for any mind to grow under, especially not when the social pressure of social media, the ‘popular’ mold, and the aggressive expectations of excellence are consistently present.
From the teenage perspective, we have loads of expectations being placed on us; to look perfect, to act perfect, to subdue our intense emotions for fear of losing a reputation. Student-Athlete Nick Lowry stated that “the expectations, if you keep them up, just kinda get higher and higher” and even after “a lot of hard work to get to where [he is] now” there is always that feeling that he could be doing better, “so it's almost never good enough.”
Staying under the amount of stress that the average high school student is under, while it may create some diamonds, there are bound to be some cracks.
Caused by the immense school pressures combined with the natural changes teens experience, the amount of stress that culminates is substantial. Dr. Swierc says that “80% of stress management is good sleep. If you aren’t sleeping then the brain can't do all these cool things that it wants to do. It can’t expand and create opportunities and thoughts”. We must manage stress by protecting sleep, keeping a routine that makes us feel good, and not trying to control everything. Focusing on the small things that you can control easily, and rewarding yourself mentally will keep you from becoming overwhelmed.
“Natural process of forming your identity that happens all through adolescence. Identity and self-image are cousins, that are related” (Swierc).
The physical health of teens is greatly overlooked. If you ask the majority of teenagers whether they are healthy, will most likely say that they are because unless they are sick because they’re fine right? With the average sleep hours a night being about 2 hours less than the minimum needed, and the consumption of fast foods, health is decreasing; but because of the age, they are not going to feel the effects of these choices. Not paying attention to health is hard to prevent as a teen because as Keegan Twigg said, “because I don't feel the effects of bad health, I don't give a s**t about it”. Without feeling the immediate consequences of disregarding health, the problem only gets worse. And with the stigmas of popularity plaguing the high school hierarchy, the usage rate of drugs, alcohol, and other substances are higher than it should be.
The stigma around body image has grown as well. Due to the damaging nature of social media, the social pressure of what to look like has taken root in the core of society. As before, looking healthy was the goal, now it is to be skinny, no matter the cost of personal health. When asked if social pressure had affected their health, responses were; “yes definitely…”(Lowry), “yes, I mean I developed not one but two eating disorders”(Twigg), and “yes; it made me depressed”(Govertson). Ruby Jenni has been a dancer since she was just a toddler; she has “been told to lose weight by basically every teacher as soon as they get to know [her]” (Jenni), even when performing at the top of her class.
It was found that over 75% of students felt that their health was impacted by the way they think. Even when told to maintain proper health, teenagers are very unlikely to notice what the outcome of their actions entails. “You can tell someone anything, but it’s not like they’ll actually listen to you” - Keegan Twigg (17)
When you prioritize mental health and start relying on your mind to tell you what is good for you, your body will start to heal itself, so you will feel better and look better in turn. College graduate Kasper the Saint said, “since I started to understand my connection with food and how nurturing it is or movement like getting out and going on a walk, those things are important …those things make me feel human and I like feeling human”.
There are two secret life hacks that Dr. Swierc swears by, is Be Grateful, and Give compliments. These will improve health and by pushing out of the range of what was the previous limitations for thought, it gives the brain more room to think.
In starting the journey to becoming healthy, start with small things. Whether it be taking the time to breathe or waking up 30 minutes earlier, the small habits will build into bigger ones, and all of a sudden you will be living your dream life.
“Change is easier to come by than you think” (Lowry).
“Opportunity is where we build our health” - (Dr. Susan Swierc)
It is also very important to keep yourself aware of the input that your brain receives. If you are constantly looking at edited, fake, Instagram models, then the idea of what a body should look like in the brain will be very much different. The same goes as for how you treat yourself; thinking positively about yourself is no easy task, especially on hard days, but “when you talk bad about yourself, you don’t have a certain level of respect for yourself, then if you can’t respect yourself, how do expect others to have respect for you” (Lowry).
“You don’t have to hop on the scale. You wake up and go, do I feel better today?” - Kasper the Saint
“Focus on waking up in the morning … once breathing gets easier you can start enjoying things” - Ruby Jenni
Try to just smile and point out one thing you like for every flaw you find. “Even if you keep saying the same thing over and over, at least you have one thing” (D. Govertson-Donaldson), and that positive energy will slowly spread. And when there is a day that just really sucks, there is no set way to approach it, just breathe and start to try and see the positive - I promise that it is there.
The times we live in are a cruel juxtaposition of the ideology that the generations before us experienced; our minds are challenged on a battlefield with the constant input of people that are projected as perfect. ‘Art of Health’ strives to help teens understand how to be healthy and provide a resource of representation for how they feel.
Share your unique perspective! Tell a story about your teenage experience, submit some art depicting the teenage perspective, or send some healthy family recipes that you would like to share with others.
