New NHS data obtained by the Guardian reveals that the number of times a girl aged 17 or under has been admitted to hospital in England because of self-harm has jumped from 10,500 to more than 17,500 a year over the past decade - a rise of 68%. The jump among boys was much lower: 26%.
"There is a growing crisis in children and young people's mental health, and in particular a gathering crisis in mental distress and depression among girls and young women," said Dr Bernadka Dubicka, the chair of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. "Emotional problems in young girls have been significantly, and very worryingly, on the rise over the past few years."
Increasing numbers of academic studies are finding that mental health problems have been soaring among girls over the past 10 - and in particular five - years, coinciding with the period in which young people's use of social media has exploded.
Government-funded research last week showedthat one in four (24%) girls aged 14, and 9% of boys the same age in the UK are beset by such negative emotions - including loneliness, self-hatred and feeling unloved - that they are depressed. That was double the 12% rate of depression seen in girls, and 5.5% in boys, a decade earlier, said Dr Praveetha Patalay, the lead author of the study.
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