ADHD medication for young people up nearly 30%, debate hears

A panel debate about the so-called snowflake generation turned to ADHD medication after a near 30 per cent rise was raised. The discussion weighed claims about young people's mental health against arguments that diagnosis and medication are being overused.

Professor Peter Fonagy, a clinical psychologist and NHS England adviser, rejected the snowflake label. He said there had been a genuine rise in mental health problems among 16-year-olds. He argued they may be the first generation who do not feel they will have a better life than their parents. He said critics should live 24 hours as a 16-year-old and said he was in awe of how they had adjusted to an environment far more difficult than the one he faced.

Nigel Farage challenged that view. He asked who Fonagy was and dismissed his argument. He cited 16-year-olds in the First and Second World Wars, children working down pits or up chimneys, and said anyone born since the 1960s had been relatively lucky. He described the idea that today's 16-year-olds face unique challenges justifying a near 30 per cent increase in ADHD medication as nonsense.

Fellow panellist Joe Phillips said he would not recommend putting children up chimneys or down mines. He noted that children in Africa, Ukraine and Gaza face dreadful times. He said mental health should be taken seriously and that increased awareness was part of the rise. But he warned that parents sometimes medicalise behaviour and put a label on it because that is easier than dealing with behavioural problems. He described children finding something they thought they could not do through sailing and gaining confidence from it.

Another panellist agreed with much of that and said the key missing focus was building resilience in children. This could involve parents, schools, competitive sport, the cadet forces and uniformed organisations outside school. The panellist said resilience includes getting up when you do not want to go to school, do games or sit through a three-hour maths lesson, and that parents should support teachers.

Farage said the panel was not downplaying serious mental health problems. But he worried that telling a 15 or 16-year-old they have ADHD and must take tablets frames them as victims. He said a victim mentality could stick and, if the diagnosis is wrong, they could lose control of their future. He said resilience was important so young people feel in control. He warned that if overdiagnosis continues and projections of another 30 per cent rise in the next few years are correct, the country will go bankrupt because it cannot afford too many people on benefits. He repeated that telling children they are victims makes them likely to stay victims.

Jacob Rees-Mogg agreed. He said people should not be given an excuse for failure and should be encouraged to succeed. He praised old-fashioned English virtues of a stiff upper lip and a relatively low emotional threshold, saying they built an empire. He said there is too much emoting and that his children cannot bear the expectation of pressure and strain, and just get on with life. He encouraged people to take knocks and push forward.

The segment moved on to other topics, including Donald Trump, Andy Burnham and Chagos. No independent data on the ADHD medication figure was presented during the discussion.