What Ails Our Youth!

While life expectancy has gone up in  India, there is little cause for cheer. The  young are ailing and, as they age, they will be worse off  than today's older generation

- Anuradha Varanasi

Rahul was 12 when he started having extreme outbursts of anger—he would throw tantrums and even turn violent. His mother also noticed that he had stopped studying. “When I started noticing these changes, I was worried. We have a history of mental illness in our family, and when he became rebellious over a period of time, I knew I had to seek professional help,” she said. Rahul was taken to a psychiatrist and a few counsellors. “He didn’t require any medication at that time, but I was able to help him get through that phase by letting him know he could talk to me openly. It took a lot of patience and effort to deal with his anger issues,” said his mother.

Rahul is among the fortunate few who are able to receive help at the right time, considering mental illness is still a taboo subject in India. According to recent research by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which was conducted in five countries—India, Germany, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Brazil—today’s children are likely to be less healthy than adults who are above 65 currently when they reach that age. (The report was released this May at the Global Consumer Health Debate in Darmstadt, Germany.)

This, despite the fact that life expectancy has increased in India by more than a decade in the last 20 years, according to the World Health Organization’s World Health Report. While currently the average life expectancy of an Indian is 68.3 years, a 2012 report in The Lancet said life expectancy has increased to nearly 72 years from 62 years since 1980.