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Young People into 2018
Young People into 2018
PRESS RELEASE EMBARGO until 12:01am Friday 8th June 2018
The Young People into 2018 report |
FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr David Regis, Research Manager, SHEU Tel.(01392) 667272 Email.
Dr Regis is available for interview and comment in advance of the midnight embargo on the night of Thursday 7th June.
We have just published Young People into 2018, which presents figures from over one hundred thousand young people (100,976) completing surveys in 2017. This report is the 32nd in a series begun in 1987. The full report may be obtained in PDF format by application to SHEU.
- Introduction
- Comments
- Headlines from each chapter
- Trends
- Infographic
Introduction
Where are the figures from?
Every year, SHEU carry out healthy lifestyle surveys with young people for local authorities and each year these surveys involve tens of thousands of young people. At the end of each calendar year, we put all the results from all the surveys together, and publish a report. These reports contain findings from over 100 health-related behaviour questions using answers from pupils in primary and secondary schools. They tell us about what they do at home, at school, and with their friends.
What’s in the report? The report has 7 chapters: CHAPTER 1 - Food choices & weight control CHAPTER 2 - Doctor & Dentist CHAPTER 3 - Health & Safety CHAPTER 4 - Family & Home CHAPTER 5 - Legal & Illegal Drugs CHAPTER 6 - Exercise & Sport CHAPTER 7 - Social & Personal The pages in each chapter show results from one question (sometimes two) and may also show links between questions and trends in responses going back over decades. |
What's new and different in these reports?
We have reported here about vapour products (e-cigarettes) for the first time, and have some extra detail about: young people who might need support if they are bullied or abused by their partner; young people’s religious beliefs; sending sexual pictures (sometimes referred to as ‘sexting’ in news media) and several links between dissatisfaction and risky health behaviours.
Some of the latest figures are different from those we last published in 2017, but not all the differences are new – it’s better to describe them as continuations of trends that we have seen going on for some time.
Continuing to increase:
- Use of computer games by 12-13yo males
- Fresh fruit on most days
- Females drinking at least a litre of water yesterday
Continuing to decrease:
- Enjoyment by 14-15yo females of physical activity
- Proportion of 14-15yo females scoring in the highest bracket of self-esteem
- Experimentation with tobacco cigarettes
- Drinking alcohol in the week before the survey
- Intending to stay in full-time education
- Use of computer games by females
Newly reported in this volume:
- Increase in reports of bullying (since 2011)
- Increase in the fear of bullying (since 2011)
Previously increasing but now steady:
- Skipping lunch
- Eating 5-a-day (portions of fruit/veg)
- Experimentation with cannabis
- 14-15yo females wanting to lose weight
- Use of computer games by males
- Enjoyment of school lessons
- Worrying about exams/tests
Previously decreasing but now steady:
- Eating crisps on most days
Comments
Dr David Regis, Research Manager of the Schools Health Education Unit, says,
“This report provides a snapshot of our young people as they were approaching 2018 and also offers some trends where we are able to look back over the last 30 years and more of our research.
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“Some of the trends are unwelcome but we can point to several positive trends. We have seen a further decline in young people's reported involvement with tobacco and alcohol. We saw a peak for many types of substance use in the mid-1990s, and since then there has been a general decline. We have spotted some increases in bullying that are of concern.”
“The individual questions and their trends are fascinating, but just as interesting are the connections we can show between questions from different chapters – so, we can see links between smoking and wellbeing, poverty, ethnicity and religion. Alcohol use always used to be associated with higher self-esteem among older pupils, but this pattern has reversed in more recent years. Lesbian, gay and bisexual young people report being bullied more often than do others – and there is also more smoking in this group.”
Angela Balding, Survey Manager at the Schools Health Education Unit, says,
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“Although we’ve seen a big increase in awareness of young people’s emotional health needs[1], the signals we see in the figures about poorer and even declining self-confidence among young women are still there."
“Looking for links between the figures, we see again that, among 14-15yo females, those who have the heaviest screen use have poorer emotional wellbeing and possibly a less healthy lifestyle in general. But while we do know there is a toxic element of online interaction, including cyber-bullying, we can’t say that being online is overall bad for these young people – they may be getting a lot of support there too, without which their wellbeing might be worse.”
“A long-term increase in skipping lunch during the ’80s and ’90s has stabilised, although the figures are still high – 18% of 14‑15yo females. And we appear no better at engaging young women with exercise – their reported enjoyment of physical activities continues to decline.”
Dr Regis adds,
“We have repeated new pages on bullying in secondary pupils, and where possible we have included throughout results from Year 4 pupils (8-9 year-olds). We also have updated our newly published findings about e-safety; second-hand smoke; perceptions of drugs; barriers to exercise; responses to problems, sexual orientation, and religion and belief.”
“As regards the aggregate data sets from which we publish this series of reports, they have become more complex and diverse. Are the figures still representative? We show in the report some evidence to show that the characteristics of the schools in the SHEU data sets are reasonably well-matched to the national population of schools, and that the results we see are comparable to those seen in national surveys using careful sampling methods.”
1. SHEU is an independent research, survey and publishing company. The Unit provides reliable baseline data for local needs assessment to inform plans in health, education and care.
2. The sample size was 100,976, but not all respondents answered all questions. Ages and year groups reported were: 3. We discourage surveys being conducted on Mondays, so ‘the day before the survey’ should have been a normal school day, and similarly ‘the week before the survey’ will not have been a holiday week. |
Phase |
Year group |
Ages |
Primary |
Year 4 |
8-9 years old |
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Year 6 |
10-11 years old |
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Secondary |
Year 8 |
12-13 years old |
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Year 10 |
14-15 years old |
4. The accumulated databank from the hundreds of school surveys we support each year, involving tens of thousands of young people, is a valuable resource of information and provides many opportunities for insight and research. But we caution against simple reporting and interpretation of our figures as being from 'a national survey'; it didn’t happen that way.
Many authorities use us every other year, and so will appear and disappear from the data sets, and there are some trends in which we can see evidence of a regional effect in the figures we obtain – as in the case of figures for eating wholemeal bread on most days in the middle 2000s, which shows a ‘rollercoaster’: |
Headlines and trends from the 2017 data set (Young People into 2018):
CHAPTER 1 - Food choices & weight control
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 2 - Doctor & Dentist
Headlines |
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Trends |
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CHAPTER 3 - Health & Safety
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 4 - Family & Home
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 5 - Legal & Illegal Drugs
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 6 - Exercise & Sport
Headlines |
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Trends |
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CHAPTER 7 - Social & Personal
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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Trends
[Click for larger version]
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