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By Emily Walkenhorst, WRAL education reporter
North Carolina education leaders will release new data Wednesday on the well-being of the state’s teenagers
State Department of Public Instruction leaders will present the results of the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey to the State Board of Education
The survey is conducted every other year and was last conducted in North Carolina in 2025, to a random sample of middle and high school students in districts that allow access. It’s anonymous, and students aren’t required to complete it
The 2023 survey showed improvements from the COVID-19 pandemic spikes in poor mental health
Still, teenagers were doing worse than a decade before that. Youth mental health has been in a gradual decline for nearly 20 years
In 2023, four in ten students said they felt so sad or hopeless at one point in the past year that they stopped doing normal activities, considered a depressive episode. About one in three high school students said they had felt lonely that year, and just more than half of high school students said they felt good about themselves
Most students weren’t exercising daily or getting eight hours of sleep, and even fewer were eating breakfast every day
State education officials drew a connection between the lack of a healthy lifestyle and feelings of sadness or worse grades. They’ve tried to work with schools to provide more opportunities for physical activity during the school day
