Why depression goes undetected in teen boys: Doctors warn about symptoms
Teenage boys are suffering from depression and anxiety too, research shows. Experts warn many young men struggling with their mental health are not getting the help they need.
Teenage boys are drowning in just as much of the depression and anxiety that’s been well documented in girls. Experts warn that many young men struggling with their mental health are left undetected and without the help they need.
“We are right to be concerned about girls,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But I don’t ever want us to lose sight of the fact that boys aren’t doing well, either.”
Depression in boys may go unnoticed, Ethier and other experts said, because boys usually don’t show it through signs of melancholy typically found in girls.
“We have this very classic understanding of depression as being sad, being tearful, crying more, not eating as much and losing weight,” said Dr. Lauren Teverbaugh, pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Tulane University in New Orleans. “That’s just not how it looks for a lot of young boys.”
A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that while antidepressant prescriptions have risen dramatically for teenage girls and women in their 20s, the rate of such prescriptions for young men “declined abruptly during March 2020 and did not recover.”
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