Participation in school athletics has a wide range of benefits for kids. For many, playing sports is just plain fun. Being active increases health and physical fitness, and the benefits extend to mental health as well. There’s a large body of research showing that regular exercise can lessen symptoms of depression and anxiety and increase feelings of well-being – owing in part to the release of endorphins in the brain. Other reasons include an increased sense of confidence that comes with regular physical activity, and for those involved in team sports, a sense of camaraderie and connection.

Yet alongside all these benefits, there’s a shadow side to youth athletics. In 2022, at least five collegiate athletes died by suicide, four of them young women. While the pandemic surely played some role in these tragic deaths, the suicides called attention to the unique challenges young athletes face.

Marshall Mintz, an expert in sports psychology who has worked with teenagers for more than thirty years, has noted that the last two decades have seen a rise in the incidence of depression and anxiety in student athletes at all levels. But why should this be? Why is something that ought to make kids feel better making them feel worse?

The Unique Pressures on Student Athletes and Mental Health

Today’s youth feel demands unlike any previous generation. In addition to heightened academic pressure to earn good grades and get into college, young people are dealing with the amplified peer pressure that comes with social media. Very little about being a young person today feels carefree. And for school-aged athletes, these stresses can be particularly acute.

While most students have just one job – staying on top of their studies – student athletes have two. In addition to succeeding academically, they’re also striving to excel at their sport. Both are demanding, time-consuming endeavors, and carrying this double load exposes young athletes to factors that can take a toll on their well-being.

Sleep Loss

For some young athletes, playing a sport means losing out on sleep – especially when early-morning practices or training is required. Teenagers need between eight and ten hours of sleep each night, and failing to get enough can have an adverse effect on mood and overall mental health. Studies have shown that kids who frequently don’t get enough sleep experience an increase in mental health and behavioral issues.

Injuries

Injuries pose another threat to athletes’ mental health. Experiencing an injury can be distressing for any young person, but participation in sports makes injury much more likely. And although a recent study by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons found the number of sports-related injuries has gone down since 2006, the severity of injuries has increased, in particular the number of neck injuries and concussions.

For student athletes, who may derive a lot of their identity and self-esteem from playing a sport, an injury that sidelines them can lead to decreased self-esteem, a loss of connection with teammates and friends, and a sense that they’re missing out, all of which can result in sadness and feelings of depression.

Increased Intensity

As a number of onlookers have noted, something’s changed about youth athletics over the last couple of decades. The intensity has been dialed up, often at an early age. According to Neeru Jayanthi, a physician at Emory Sports Medicine in Atlanta, kids are increasingly focusing intensively on a single sport, at younger and younger ages. “What used to be a way to have fun with your friends turned into ‘how good can you get and how quickly can you get there’,” Jayanthi says. Such single-minded focus can lock kids into continual, year-round training schedules that often crowd out other interests and activities, and can lead to overuse injuries, exhaustion, and burnout.

Social Media

The pressure that social media exerts on young people in general can be magnified for student athletes. The sense of always being “on” can be even more pronounced for these kids, intensifying their fear of failure.

Body image issues can also be stoked by social media. While there are plenty of positive messages online, healthy messages are competing with, and frequently overshadowed by, unhealthy ones. A survey of student athletes aged 8 to 18 by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that some young athletes had given up their sport because they felt the way their bodies looked didn’t measure up to the images they’d seen online.

One of the researchers noted that while both boys and girls were affected, the impact was greater on girls. “They felt less confident in their body, they felt more unattractive, like they had more unattractive features that made them nervous while they’re playing sports . . . And sadly, we saw that 45% thought about and 25% have actually tried to change the way they look to fit the appearance that they feel would be better suited for sports.”

Disordered eating is one way student athletes may try to change their bodies. A 2020 study found that adolescent athletes were at higher risk of developing eating disorders than their non-athlete peers, and that athletes whose sport places particular value on leanness, such as long-distance running and gymnastics, may be particularly at risk. Social media isn’t the only factor in eating disorders, but endless images of “perfect” bodies can exacerbate existing anxieties.

When Parental Support Becomes Pressure

While all parents want their kids to be happy, sometimes parents’ own desires for their children can overrun what their kids want themselves. When this dynamic plays out in the arena of athletics, young people may feel an inordinate pressure to keep playing a sport even when they no longer want to, and to excel simply to please their parents.

Jay Coakley, a sports sociologist, says that one way parents inadvertently pressure their kids is by spending excessive amounts of money on sports camps, private coaches, tournaments, pricey equipment, and other expenditures. What might be intended by parents as support is sometimes perceived by young people as pressure. The result for kids can be lower motivation and enjoyment of their sport and ultimately anxiety, depression, and decreased well-being. If these young athletes do end up quitting, they may end up feeling like failures, convinced they’ve let their parents or their teammates down.

Some parents hold unrealistic expectations for their kids. In one survey of parents of child athletes, nearly 60 percent hoped their children would go on to play sports professionally, or at least at the college level. Yet only a tiny fraction – one or two percent – will achieve such success.

Pressure to earn a college scholarship is yet another way that parental pressure can weigh on kids. Of course, it’s not only parents who harbor hopes of a scholarship as a ticket to college. Many student athletes dream of playing at the collegiate level. Yet the road to get there brings its own intense pressures. The lengthy high-stakes recruitment process can be arduous and exhausting and can snuff out a young athlete’s joy.

How Adults Can Help Student Athletes

In 2022, Amanda Dahlman, a former college volleyball player, created @hopeforathletes, an Instagram account where student athletes can share their stories and mental health struggles. Dalhman, who’s had her own mental health challenges, thinks more needs to be done for young athletes. “I reflected on my high school self, and I never remember anybody ever talking about mental health,” Dahlman said.

Platforms in which young people support one another can help normalize mental health issues and reduce their associated stigma, helping kids know they’re not alone. But young people can’t solve these problems by themselves. And adults can’t assume kids who are struggling will let them know about it. While the stigma surrounding mental health issues has lessened in recent years, it still exists, and student athletes may compound their difficulties by adding shame to the mix – believing they shouldn’t be feeling the way they are, or fearing that asking for help would make them appear weak. Parents, educators, coaches, and administrators all have a role to play in ensuring that student athletes are helped and not harmed by participating in sports.

Keeping Athletes on Schools’ Radar

Increasingly, mental health in athletes is gaining attention. In Michigan, students who plan to engage in high school athletics may soon be asked about their mental health as part of their mandatory medical exam. The Michigan High School Athletic Association is considering adding the questions to better identify kids who need help and to make sure they get it. One of the advocates of this change is a pediatric physician who lost his own student-athlete son to suicide.

 In Oregon, after one of its student athletes took his own life, the Redmond School District recognized they had to make changes. They hired two mental-health counselors to work inside their high schools, and their athletic training staff designed a four-question “Wellness Check.” The questionnaire is distributed to athletes weekly, asking about their sleep, diet, injuries, and mental health. If any of the responses raise red flags, coaches follow up with trained staff. While young people may not necessarily volunteer information about their struggles, they will often respond honestly when they’re asked directly, so screenings like this can successfully identify young people who need help.

And last year, the state of Ohio passed a law – the first in the country – requiring all school athletic coaches to undergo training in student mental health issues and support. Trainings like these can be powerful. Coaches often forge close bonds with student athletes, yet without education, most are ill-equipped to respond appropriately to such complicated issues.

In addition to educating coaches, ensuring teachers and school staff understand the student athlete mental health connection is vital. While many young athletes appear confident and seem to “have it all together,” the added stresses they carry can be wreaking havoc under the surface.

And for parents, it’s important to stay attuned to their child, to encourage rather than push, to avoid criticism and blame, and to make sure the child is participating in athletics because they want to, not because they feel they have to. Being interested and supportive is crucial, but most important is recognizing that the child is separate and may choose a different sport than the one the parent prefers – or may choose no sport at all.

Athletics can enhance a young person’s life, and the majority of young people who play sports will be enriched by them rather than diminished. But no child is immune from mental health struggles, and it’s important that adults – parents, coaches, and educators – recognize that young athletes are under a unique set of pressures and need support.