Young People into 2023

PRESS RELEASE

The Young People into 2023 report

FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr David Regis, Research Manager, SHEU Tel.(01392) 667272 Email. david.regis@sheu.org.uk 
 

We have just published Young People into 2023, which presents figures from a sample of nearly 150,000 young people (147,577) completing surveys in 2022. This report is the 36th in a series begun in 1987.  The full report may be obtained in PDF format by application to SHEU.

The 121,654 pupils in the target year groups compose our largest published sample ever.

Some of the latest figures are different from those we last published in 2022, 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.  And some might be meaningless ‘wobbles’ in the data set.

The PDF version of this press release includes up-to-date charts showing trends.

 

Angela Balding, Surveys Manager at SHEU, comments:

"It’s great to have broken our previous record for sample size – over 120,000 in the target year groups in this report!  To some extent this is catching up from missed surveys during COVID disruptions.  We are very grateful for school staff and pupils for their participation at a time of continuing pressure and industrial action.

"The two figures that stand out for me are the 1/3 of students who have tried vaping (part of a rising trend in experimentation and use of e-cigarettes), and the further fall among older female students achieving a high score for self-esteem.~

Dr. David Regis, Research Manager at SHEU, comments:

"WATSON: Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
HOLMES: To the curious incident... of the charts during COVID.
WATSON: The charts did very little during COVID.
HOLMES: That was the curious incident.

We again append a collection of trend charts from our data archives.  Our view last year was:

  • There are several trends charts which show a discontinuity from 2019 to 2020/21 – either a change of direction or a change of pace.
  • Some of these are easy to attribute to coronavirus restrictions and their impact (decline in going to the dentist in the last year) but some are not.
  • Some changes we might be tempted to attribute to coronavirus (decline in scoring high for self-esteem) but these are better represented as a continuation of existing trend.
  • The clearest effects of the period of COVID restrictions were seen in three charts: dentist visits, young people’s awareness of the availability of free condoms, and skipping lunch (and lunches have more than recovered).

Now we have a post-lockdown set of data points – and from a very large sample – it is more often the case that the 2020-21 figures do not stand out as anomalous or as a point where a step-change in prevalence has occurred.  Which is to say, in plainer language – we can’t see much effect of COVID lockdowns on young people, including on their mental health and attitude to school.

This is not to say that many individual young people did not struggle because of school closures and other measures -- I know personally some who did -- but there is little evidence of an overall effect in these data.

We have not been successful in the past in promoting the importance of such negative results, but we live in hope.~

 

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.

 

Notes

1. SHEU (the Schools and Students Health Education Unit) was founded in Exeter University in 1977 by John Balding and has operated independently since 1997.  It is the leading provider of health and lifestyle surveys for schools and holds a unique set of databanks showing levels of and trends in young people's behaviours since in the 1980s.

2. The whole sample size was 147,557 but not all respondents answered all questions, and only 121,654 were in the target year groups (still our largest published sample ever).

                                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

 

Year 6

10-11 years old

Secondary

Year 8

12-13 years old

 

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 2020-21 data set (Young People into 2022):

 

CHAPTER 1 - Food choices & weight control

Headlines
  • Around 10% of all pupils said they ate no portions of fruit or vegetables yesterday.  About 30% of pupils aged 8-11 but less than 20% of 14-15-year-old pupils said they ate at least the recommended 5 portions on the day before the survey.
  • Up to 10% of pupils say they had no water to drink on the day before the survey.
  • There is a marked increase once we get to the secondary age group among females wanting to lose weight – 58% of 14-15-year-old females said they would like to lose weight.

Trends
  • The trend for more pupils to skip lunch steadied about 10 years ago.
  • Daily consumption of crisps declined after about 2000 and has stabilised since.

Links
  • Year 10 females who skipped breakfast on the morning of the survey were also more likely to have skipped lunch on the day before the survey, and to want to lose weight.

CHAPTER 2 - Doctor & Dentist

Headlines
  • Over half of pupils have visited a doctor in the last three months.
  • 15% of 14-15-year-old females felt quite or very uneasy on their last visit.
  • 80-95% of all groups had been to the dentist in the last year.
  • About 83% of all groups brushed their teeth at least twice on the day before the survey.

Trends
  • The proportion visiting the dentist in the last year dropped in this report.

CHAPTER 3 - Health & Safety

Headlines
  • Around 1/3 of primary pupils said they experienced bullying behaviours often or every day – these behaviours included teasing and name-calling but also being pushed/hit.
  • Of those bullied often, about 1/3 report being bullied during school break times.
  • The most common reasons reported for being bullied were size or weight and the way you look, especially for older females.
  • Fear of bullying at school declines with age.
  • Up to a quarter of older pupils report unwelcome behaviours from boyfriends/girlfriends, like jealousy, hurtful language and checking my ‘phone.
  • 85% of all groups say they have been told how to stay safe while online.
  • 12% of older females (14-15yo) say they have sent sexual images of themselves.

1/3 of pupils (more males) reported having an accident in the last year that needed medical attention.

Trends
  • Reports of being bullied and the fear of being bullied have increased since 2011.

Links
  • Getting plenty of sleep is associated with fewer worries and more contentment with their weight in 14-15-year-old females.
  • We have usually found a ‘humped’ association between wellbeing and time spent online or using a ’phone, with students reporting moderate use having the highest wellbeing scores.

CHAPTER 4 - Family & Home

Headlines

Trends
  • A rise in time spent playing computer games is shown clearly in our figures for males of all ages.

Links
  • Being a young carer is associated with several unwelcome outcomes – more reports of being bullied, of smoking, of money worries and of accidents.
  • Similarly, having free school meals is also associated with being bullied.

 

 

CHAPTER 5 - Legal & Illegal Drugs

Headlines
  • 20% of the 14-15-year-olds had drunk alcohol in the week before the survey.  Drinking was done most often at home.
  • About 5% of 14-15-year-olds smoke weekly or more often.
  • 1/3 of pupils live in homes where someone smokes, but less than 10% report someone smoking indoors.
  • Less than 20% of 14-15yo have tried tobacco cigarettes, but about 1/3 report trying e-cigarettes.
  • 10% of pupils aged 14-15 years had ever tried drugs – nearly always cannabis, if nothing else.

Trends
  • Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are in long-term decline in our figures; cannabis experimentation has been fairly stable for the last decade.
  • Figures for reported experience with cannabis are notable for an absence of much effect of legislation during changes 2004-2009.

Links
  • There is an association between finding drugs education lessons more useful and lower substance use (see Chapter 7).
  • Alcohol use always used to be associated with higher self-esteem among older pupils, but this pattern has reversed in recent years. 

CHAPTER 6 - Exercise & Sport

Headlines
  • Around 90% of all groups say they did some sort of exercise last week but less than 15% said they exercised every day, and even fewer claimed to exercise hard enough to get hot.  (Recommendations are for daily exercise of at least an hour in total, including some vigorous exercise and strength-building activities.)
  • Weekly sports and activities included going for walks (over half of secondary females) soccer (about half of secondary males) and dancing (over a quarter of secondary females).
  • Among secondary pupils, the most commonly reported barriers to taking exercise were time, cost, availability and, especially in females, shyness (29% of 14-15yo girls).

Trends
  • Enjoyment of physical activities is lowest among 14-15-year-old females and is declining.
  • Perceived fitness is in decline among both secondary year groups and both sexes.

CHAPTER 7 - Social & Personal

Headlines
  • Over half of 10-11-year-olds agree that the school cares whether I am happy or not but just a third of 14-15-year-olds say the same.
  • The majority of 12-15-year-olds enjoy at least half of their lessons.
  • Worries about school and the way you look are higher in secondary age groups, particularly among 14-15-year-old females (over 60% of whom are worried at least ‘quite a lot’ about each issue).
  • The most commonly reported response to having a problem or feeling stressed is to talk to someone about it.  Some pupils distract themselves with music or comfort themselves with eating more; over 15% of 14-15yo females say they sometimes cut or hurt myself (twice as many as males of the same age).
  • Over 2/3 of secondary pupils judge that they can usually or always say no if someone wants them to do something that they don’t want to do.
  • About 40% of 14-15-year-olds know where to get condoms free of charge (much lower than 2019)

Trends
  • We see a continued decline in the proportion of 14-15-year-old females who score in the top bracket of self-esteem scores, with more scoring in the lower brackets.
  • Worry about school, exams and tests seems to be increasing among 14-15 year-olds.

Links
  • Lesbian, gay and bisexual young people are more likely than their peers to report being bullied and also to have tried smoking or drugs.

 

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