A new University of Waterloo study looking at the health of Canada’s high school students shows some alarming trends.
Among the study’s findings is that fewer than 1 per cent of high school students exhibit behaviours that would see their health improve between starting Grade 9 and graduating Grade 12.
“The majority of kids in Canada, by the time they’re graduating high school, are actually exhibiting behaviours … that are going to raise their risk for chronic disease,” says Scott Leatherdale, the study’s author and an associate professor in Waterloo’s public health faculty.
Those behaviours include poor diet and a lack of physical activity, but also smoking cigarettes and marijuana, as well as binge drinking.
According to the study, more than 25 per cent of Grade 12 students report instances of binge drinking, while 93 per cent aren’t consuming adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables.
In general, the study finds increases in unhealthy behaviours as students move through high school, with Grade 12 students being 124 per cent more likely to use marijuana than their peers in Grade 9.
“Something appears to change between Grade 10 and Grade 11,” says Leatherdale.
“That’s when the number of risk factors that students are exhibiting increases a bit dramatically.”
Leatherdale says the study’s findings shouldn’t be seen as reflective of modern high school students as much as of the environments in which they are raised, which may not be as healthy as they were in the past.
The survey is based on nationally representative data from 2010, the most recent data set available.
