English girls sickest and unhappiest in Europe, ‘hugely worrying’ study finds

Girls in England are the sickest and unhappiest in Europe, according to a major study.

Almost two-thirds of 11-year-old English girls report having multiple health issues at least twice a week – more than any other country on the continent.

This rises to 71 per cent by the age of 13 and 77 per cent by age 15, when it is only more common to have multiple ailments in Italy and Greece.

At the same time, English girls had the worst mental wellbeing of the 44 countries assessed across all three ages.

Experts have blamed a combination of tough lockdown measures, a surge in access to harmful social media content, and growing levels of inactivity and obesity.

Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s national mental health director, said girls were facing “new and emerging pressures” and that the report was “hugely worrying”.

“This generation of young girls has been under increasing pressures on competing fronts – from social media and cyber bullying to growing up through the once-in-a-century pandemic, there are new and emerging pressures that we haven’t always had to manage in the past,” she said.

“But it’s hugely worrying that girls in the UK are faring worse than their peers across Europe.”

Ms Murdoch said the NHS had increased the workforce of its children’s mental health services by 70 per cent and were supporting more children in school.

The report into the state of health across Europe by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed children in England were more likely to complain of multiple illnesses than almost all other countries while also suffering from the worst outlook on life.

Girls were more likely to have multiple health complaints on a weekly basis and be unhappier than boys – and this gender gap only increased with age.

The proportion of sick and unhappy children has risen more sharply in England than other European countries since the pandemic.

Among boys, England ranked fifth out of the 44 countries the report looked into, with 40 per cent of 11-year-olds and 43 per cent of 13-year-olds having multiple health complaints respectively. Among 15-year-olds it rose to 45 per cent.

The most-common health issues for both girls and boys were “frequently associated with psychological distress”, the authors said, which includes nervousness, irritability and difficulty getting to sleep.

It was also common for the children to describe feeling low and experience headaches, stomach aches and back aches.

The OECD said there were “many factors” behind the declining mental wellbeing and increasing health issues.

“These include declining physical activity in older age groups, especially for girls, potentially lower social interactions, higher rate of problematic internet and social media use, and exposure to cyberbullying, which has increased significantly in recent years,” the organisation said.

“In addition, the average age of onset for many mental disorders is in early adolescence, around 14 years of age.”

It also recognised that the Covid-19 pandemic meant “young people’s mental health deteriorated markedly.”

Dr Elaine Lockhart, chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Child and Adolescent Faculty, said the report made clear “young people are increasingly reporting that their mental health and wellbeing is worse now than it was prior to the pandemic”.

She said this “puts them at greater risk of developing a mental illness” and was being driven by “everyday issues such as increases in poverty, housing and food insecurity, as well as loneliness and isolation”.

Dr Lockhart added that receiving mental health support quickly was key to preventing “long-term conditions that negatively impact their education, social development and health in later life”.

Demand for children’s mental health services has risen drastically since the pandemic, with 812,185 children under 18 in contact with an NHS mental health service in 2024 – up by more than 50 per cent in three years.

At the same time, children’s physical health has also been deteriorating. A 2024 report from the Academy of Medical Sciences said there had been an “appalling decline” in child health.

In England, more than one in four 11 to 15-year-old girls are overweight or obese, and they are more likely to be overweight than boys of the same age, according to NHS data.

At the same time, they are also more likely to be underweight, want to change weight, or have or be at risk of developing an eating disorder, further fuelling body image and mental health issues that are exacerbated by social media.

Other research points to the start children are getting in life, with rising rates of avoidable infant mortality, falling vaccination rates, and almost a quarter of children suffering from entirely preventable tooth decay before their fifth birthday.

The data in the OECD report was taken from the 2023 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study with representative samples of children from each country.

Olly Parker, head of external affairs and research at charity, YoungMinds, said: “Growing up today is incredibly tough. Many young people are experiencing multiple pressures which impact their mental health, including poverty, inequality, intense academic pressure and the online world, so it’s no wonder so many are struggling.”

He said girls were more likely to struggle with their mental health because “they are more likely to experience harmful contact online and to have concerns about their body image”.

“The world is a hostile place for young women, with misogyny in popular culture and daily media reports about male violence against women the norm,” Mr Parker said. “All these factors will be impacting girls and young women’s mental health.

Rosie Weatherley, information content manager at charity Mind, said that the stigma and discrimination around mental health is “getting worse in England and Wales” and services are “under-resourced”.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is deeply alarming that the mental health outcomes of our young girls lag significantly behind those of our European neighbours. Poor mental health hampers life chances for children and robs them of their potential.

“Every child should have access to support, which is why we are working to ensure children receive high quality mental health support close to home. 

“We are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers, launching Young Futures hubs across our communities and putting a specialist mental health professional in every school in England.”