I was sat in a three hour exam today, and my mind wandered multiple times from geography and landed on a topic that I don't think about a lot- looking after myself both mentally and physically.
While there are many teenagers from my generation who are physically fit, maybe some who are mentally perfect, what I've noticed that a lot of people my age just don't look after themselves.
There are usually two extremes to these things, while some people starve themselves to get that 'perfect physique', others binge on fast food because it's cheap and... Well... tasty. Neither is healthy for you, yet both of those characteristics are so common in teenagers. While some people spend excessive hours a day studying, some people do nothing. Neither of those are good for your work (excessive studying in the evening and into the night will just make you more tired and less efficient) but most people I know seem to be verging on both of those extremes.
A lot of this generation don't sleep enough, don't eat enough good food, some don't get nearly enough exercise (lol @me) and I suppose I started to question why exactly. Has this happened for decades with teenagers? Is this lack of self-care prompted by technology?
Teenagers these days are subjected to copious amounts of stress, from other people, mounds of work and themselves, and I think it's this stress in most aspects of their lives that shapes the way they look after themselves.
I think a lot of people are in denial about their health (both mental and physical) because they appear to be alright on the outside. For me personally, I deny the fact that I'm completely out of shape because the mirror and the scales tell me I'm a normal weight, but my actual fitness level is so low because I do little to no exercise and I eat crap food. As for my mental health, let's not go there.
I'm actually quite worried about a majority of this generation, because we all seem to be in a constant state of stress and denial, all while obsessing over things that don't really matter.