Statistics Related to Teenage Girls

Emotions

· The female brain responds more intensely to emotion. Feelings, especially sadness, trigger neurons in an area eight times larger in the female brain than in the male.[1]

· The neurons in the FEMALE adolescent brain that trigger emotions (especially sadness) are up to eight times larger than they were in childhood.[2]

“90% of high school girls admit that they’ve thought they were crazy.” Jump magazine, April 2000[3]

Harassment

· Girls aren’t any nicer to one another. Researchers suggest that an incident of bullying takes places once every seven minutes in school today,[4] and that by the eighth grade 81% of girls have experienced sexual harassment.[5]

Anxiety

Eleven million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders during the best of times, and today when we are barraged by news of war, terrorism, and economic instability our “privileged nation is feeling unusually vulnerable and uncharacteristically anxious.”[6]
Counselors are reporting a six-fold increase in the number of teenagers seeking help for anxiety-related problems.[7]

Depression

Experts in the field of adolescent psychology believe that 20 percent of all teenagers will have a diagnosis of clinical depression.”[8] About three out of every ten teens will experience mild to moderate depressive symptoms, which actually parallels the statistics for adult depression.[9]
“In the past fifteen years, the number of people in the U.S. suffering from depression has more than doubled. . . . Across the globe, by the year 2020, depression is projected to be second only to heart disease as the leading cause of debilitating illness.”[10]

Eating Disorders

“Bulimia is the epidemic of our time,” writes eating disorder specialist Mary Pipher. “Eight to 20 percent of all high school girls are bulimic.”[11]
The most recent study by the Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention Organization concluded that “at least forty percent of adolescent girls suffer from some form of disordered eating.”[12]

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Teenage Statistics/page two

Cutting

Experts estimate that between two and three million American are self-injurers. The S.A.F.E. Alternative Program (a treatment center for self-injurers) reports that 1,400 out of every 100,000 people in the general population have engaged in some form of self-injury. “The syndrome is more prevalent than most people think, and yet it is grossly underreported and misdiagnosed. . . . A particularly alarming aspect of the rising tide of self-injury is that the behavior is making its appearance earlier and earlier in the childhood and adolescent years.”[13] In fact, 90 percent of self-injurers begin the abuse during their teen years. Most cutters are female.[14]
It’s important to note that over half of all self-injurers have suffered sexual or physical abuse during childhood.[15]
It’s important to note that over half of all self-injurers have suffered sexual or physical abuse during childhood.[16]

Suicide

· “Suicide in the young, which has at least tripled over the past forty-five years, is without argument, one of our most serious public health problems. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people in the United States and the second for college students.”[17]

The 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey canvassed 16,000 9^th-12^th graders. The researchers discovered that one in every five of the teenagers surveyed had “seriously considered” attempting suicide in the previous twelve months; 16 percent had actually drawn up a plan. Girls were much more likely to have considered or planned a suicide attempt.[18]

[1] Anne Moir and David Jessel, Brain Sex: The Real Difference between Men and Women, NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1991, pp. 33-37.

[2] Sandra Susan Friedman, When Girls Feel Fat, Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 2000, p. 27.

[3] Kimberly Dawn Neumann, “The Jump on Body & Soul,” Jump, April 2000, p. 34.

[4] Gesele Lajoie, Alyson McLelland and Cindi Seddon, Take Action Against Bullying, Coquitlam, BD: Bully Beware Productions, 1997.

[5] Nan Stein, Nancy L. Marshall and Linda R. Tropp, Secrets in Public: Sexual Harassment in Our Schools, American Association of University Women Foundation, 1993, p. 7.

[6] Geoffrey Cowley, Newsweek, “Our Bodies, Our Fears,” February 24, 2003, p. 44.

[7] Ibid., p. 48.

[8] Miriam Kaufman, BScN, MD, FRCP, Overcoming Teen Depression: A Guide for Parents, NY: Firefly Books, 2001, p. 6.

[9] Miriam Kaufman, BScN, MD, FRCP, Overcoming Teen Depression: A Guide for Parents, NY: Firefly Books, 2001, p. 2.

[10] Gregory Jantz, Ph.D., Moving Beyond Depression, Colorado Springs: Shaw Books, 2003, p. 1.

[11] Mary Pipher Hunger Pains, Holbrook, Mass: Adams Publishing, 1995, p. 53.

[12] Lori Gottlieb, “I Had an Eating Disorder and Didn’t Even Know It!” CosmoGirl, April 2001, 149.

[13] Karen Contour and Wendy Alder, Ph.D., Bodily Harm, NY: Heparin, 1998, pp. 21-22.

[14] Wade, p. 60.

[15] Wade, p. 60.

[16] Wade, p. 60.

[17] Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls, NY: Vintage Books, 1999, p. 21.

[18] P.M. Lewinsohn, P. Rohde, and J.P. Seeley, “Adolescent Suicidal Ideation and Attempts: Prevalance, Risk Factors, and Clinical Implications,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 3 (1996), pp. 25-46.