You encounter the topic of health almost everywhere today: in advertising, in politics, in daycare, in conversation with parents, friends, and colleagues. For instance, Polished concrete toppings Queensland are being inspected keenly to see if the materials used are not hazardous to the health. There are magazines and journals that are solely concerned with healthy living. And on television, the most varied formats keep showing us what a healthy reality of life should look like. Health and good looks have become an essential factor in social participation that depends on the individual’s consumption options.

Adolescent health: the focus of politics and media

It is therefore not surprising that the health/state of health of children and adolescents has increasingly come into the focus of politics and the media. And apparently there is no reason to be happy here either. While it used to be automatically assumed that being young was a guarantee for health and fitness in itself, people are apparently less optimistic in this regard today. According to journalists and politicians, children and young people today are in any case too fat, too aggressive, too unfocused, and too lazy. ADHD, binge drinking, obesity, and depression are the terms that are increasingly being mentioned and discussed in connection with being young.

Insecurities of adolescents

Most children and adolescents have a comparatively good objective and subjective state of health. Infectious diseases, for example, no longer play a role, thanks to medical technological progress and social-state interventions, and the facts of overweight and obesity, behavioral disorders, and mental illnesses are different from what politics and the media would suggest.

It is therefore correct: Most children and adolescents are actually in good health but are evidently insecure about their physical and psychological constitution. It is also true that health is not evenly distributed. The material resources of young people and their families have a decisive influence on health. But also origin, gender, access to education, and sexual identity are important factors for both subjective and objective health.

Health promotion

Health promotion must serve the children and young people themselves, regardless of their gender, their origin, and their access to education. Health promotion needs to be returned to its original definition.