Health Issues and Adolescents: Growing Up, Speaking Out

by Hendry,Leo B.

• ISBN13: 9780415168489
• ISBN10: 0415168481
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-06-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Most research and policy agendas relating to young people are dominated by adult concerns about young people's health; rarely are the issues looked at from a young person's perspective. Numerous public health campaigns target young people's drinking, smoking, drug-taking and sexual behavior, despite the fact that this is the segment of the population with the lowest morbidity and mortality of any age. Do young people themselves share this concern about their health? This gap in our knowledge may be a critical factor in explaining some of the problems that health educators face in getting young people to transform health knowledge into action. Based on their own research, Shucksmith and Hendry set adult agendas to one side and explore young people's own views about their health and health behaviors. They provide recommendations about initiatives relevant to a wide range of professionals and researchers involved in the health education of young people.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vi
Acknowledgements	viii
Young people's perceptions of their own health needs	1	(10)
`Giving a voice to children': exploring young people's own agendas on health	11	(14)
`You look in all these magazines and you see all these supermodels...': body image, appearance and health	25	(13)
`Down the Yoker': the impact of localism on young people's health beliefs and actions	38	(17)
`I don't listen to everything she says...': family influences on young people's health beliefs	55	(21)
`I sort of get pushed into things': peer pressure and young people's beliefs in their own `agency' with respect to health	76	(25)
`It's a balance': young people speak out about health risk areas in their lives	101	(27)
Conclusins: `I'm not going to do anything stupid!'	128	(15)
References	143	(17)
Subject Index	160	(3)
Name Index	163