The British Society of Lifestyle Medicine welcomes the government’s commitment to a cross-government mental health strategy, and especially its central shift from sickness to prevention. For children and young people, that shift is overdue.
The numbers make the case. The proportion of young people with a common mental health condition has risen to 25.8%, from 17.5% in 2007, and demand for children and young people’s services has grown faster still, with too many waiting too long for support. Most mental health conditions that persist into adult life first appear before the mid-twenties, which makes childhood and adolescence the period where prevention matters most.
A great deal of what protects mental health sits outside the consulting room. The evidence that physical activity, sleep, nutrition, social connection and a healthier relationship with the online world shape wellbeing is now substantial, and the effect is greatest while habits, relationships and self-image are still forming. Schools are central to this. They are where prevention can reach every child, and the welcome expansion of mental health support teams needs to be matched by the everyday conditions that keep children well in the first place: active days, decent food, protected sleep and time for real connection.
Lifestyle medicine offers practical, evidence-based and equitable approaches that augment standard clinical care and help reach the “missing middle”, the many young people whose needs are real but who fall short of the threshold for specialist services. BSLM looks forward to contributing to the call for evidence, and to working across health, education and government to give every child and young person the foundations for good mental health.
Dr Alex Maxwell, President, British Society of Lifestyle Medicine
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