WASHINGTON — There’s a troubling trend revealed by a new study which shows that depression in kids starts as early as age 11. By the time they are in their late teens, more than 36 percent of girls are or have been depressed.
Psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig told WTOP that the findings of the study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry explains why girls are more vulnerable to experience depression than boys.
“It is because of this feeling ‘I need to be perfect. I need to be thin. I need to look good in order to be popular or well liked.’ Boys tend to have better self-esteem when it comes to how they feel about themselves and their self-image,” Ludwig said.
Researchers pulled data from in-person interviews with more than 100,000 children who participated in the National Survey of Drug Use and Health from 2009 to 2014. The annual survey is based on a representative sample of the United States population.
Ludwig suggests parents remind their kids not to compare themselves to social media and that most online posts are representative of the lives people want to lead, not necessarily their reality.
The goal in talking to children about the effect of their feelings is “to really highlight what goes into being successful person,” he said.
“It’s not the prettiest person who wins, or the skinniest person who is the most popular. It’s a host of things.”
