While schools teach about mental and physical health, it can easily be noticed that students are more taught to participate in physical activities like running, swimming, etc, but what exactly do they do about mental health?

Mental health, in my opinion, is far more important than physical health, for a number of reasons. While mental health is often overlooked in educational environments, it’s unclear to students just how important it truly is. Kaitlyn Keith, a freshman says, “I think mental health is more important than physical health because you should be worrying about yourself and not worry about how much you exercise every day because that’s not what you’re supposed to worry about.” While it’s stressed in health classes that generations today are suffering more from obesity, and eating disorders and that should be our primary focus should be to stop these habits before they grow to excess, truly a mental health problem may be to blame. With mental health problems being overlooked in society and in schools, students can feel as though they’ve been left in the dark by their schools, and no student should ever feel like that. Mental health is often overlooked because of the widespread misinformation, nobody goes through the exact same thing, our lives would be pretty boring if we did, but nobody is going to have the same thoughts as someone else. Mental health can lead to a variety of different outcomes…

Mental health can possibly lead to depression, anxiety, panic disorders, eating disorders, and social phobia. While it’s not in every case that this happens, teens are more susceptible to one of those (or other) outcomes of negative mental health. Why teens? During the teenage years, it has been discovered by the World Health Organization, that one in seven 10-19-year-olds experience some sort of mental health condition, that is 14% of teens and pre-teens, and many of those cases go unnoticed and untreated. That’s three students in a class of twenty-one. While physical health is important, and it can be argued that it’s more impactful because if someone doesn’t have good health it can contribute to bad mental health, I believe mental health is more important.

Mental health can lead to a very dark and dangerous road very fast, but it can also lead to a very bright and sunny path. Students often can feel left in the dark during school because, in educational environments, it is clear that education is the top priority, and if a student isn’t doing the greatest mentally, piling a ton of assignments onto them is surely not going to help. While it’s a good thing that our education is the top priority, the students and their well-being should be just as important, because the end goal of high school is to send these students out into the world prepared for anything that comes their way, but if schools constantly leave them in the dark, these students will not be prepared. Students need to be taught more about mental health and it can’t be overlooked any longer, mental health can kill people, but mental health can also heal people, there is such differentiation in everyone and their mental health that it should not be overlooked.

While I argue that mental health is more important than physical, others argue that physical health is more important. We’ve all seen the new trend of going to the gym, when someone breaks your heart you’re supposed to go to the gym, when you feel sad you’re supposed to go to the gym, this can help heal mental health and some even say, it’s a way to relax yourself. It’s been proven according to Health Direct, that by going to the gym and working out your brain will endorphins and serotonin (otherwise known as “feel good” chemicals) that will work to improve your mood. By focusing on physical activity like going to the gym, it can help distract from negative thoughts. Physical health is encouraged and taught consistently and constantly in high schools, whereas mental health is briefly discussed in a few days.