Script

Social media, bullying, exam stress, appearance, maintaining relationships. These are just some of the many pressures teenagers are faced with nowadays.

Today we are at the Sixth Form College, Solihull to look at how stress affects them as young people in today’s society.So, what are students really stressed about?

Whilst visiting the Sixth Form College, Solihull, we spoke to an academic coach to hear how much she deals with student stress.

We conducted a survey which 40 students completed and the results were surprising.Only 1 person said that they wouldn’t change anything about their appearance.33 people said that college is the main reason for their stress.And 39 out of 40 think others have certain expectations for them to achieve.

Natasha Chamberlain from Solihull Council gave us her expert opinion on young people’s concerns throughout the years.

The ChildLine National Exam Stress Survey collected some information of their own and this is what they found. 81% said they felt under pressure to have the perfect body and 40% of these pressures came from pictures on social media.

To give us more information and a better understanding of the mental affects stress has on our bodies, we got a chance to talk to Psychology expert, Tom Krawec.

In 2011, 884 of the 6332 calls that Young Minds received were from 16-17 year olds and 39% of those were about school problems including exam stress.78% expect exam stress to have negative impacts on their appearance, health or mental state.

But, how do they cope with this?

We interviewed members of the public in Solihull to see if their opinion differed by asking them who they thought faced more pressure: teenagers or adults?

Coming up: Kevin Doherty tells us his personal opinion on young people’s futures.