Some universities need to triple mental health services funding, says report

Some universities need to triple their funding for mental health services if they are to meet growing demand from students in need of support, according to a new report.

The paper by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) thinktank says the scale of the mental health problem among university students is “bigger than ever before”.

The report published on Thursday, entitled The Invisible Problem? Improving Students’ Mental Health, says the majority of students experience low wellbeing; depression and loneliness affect one in three; more than one in 10 have a diagnosable mental illness; and the number of student suicides has risen.

Yet according to Hepi, the salary of a university vice-chancellor or a single star academic – which can be upwards of £200,000 – can cost more than a university’s entire counselling service in the lowest-funded institutions.

Other universities spend considerably more on student mental health, including the University of Sussex, which had a £456,000 budget for its counselling services for 2015-16.

Evidence shows that counselling services are highly effective, but student-to-counsellor ratios can be three to four times lower than the required number. Therefore, according to Hepi, those universities spending the least need to increase funding threefold.

Nick Hillman, Hepi director, said: “Mental disorders are most common in young adults, just at the age when many people become students. Going to university can be stressful, especially for first-in-family students. Typically, you lose your established support networks, move to a new part of the country and take on large debts. Occasionally, it even ends in tragedy.

“So it is vital that people entering university for the first time know that support is available, that any problems can be shared, and that asking for help is normal.”

As well as increased spending, the report recommends that students should be allowed to register with one doctor at home and one at university to ensure continuity of care; universities should adopt mental health action plans to improve their service; and all staff who have regular contact with students should be given mental health training.

Some universities need to triple mental health services funding, says report

Dimension triple zero: why will not our obsession with super skinny disappear?

Size issues. For men, the common rule is the larger the much better. For women, it is the opposite — at least when it comes to dress dimension. Consequently the re-emergence of the size zero debate, reignited with the appearance of dimension triple zero. The authentic dimension zero, 1st brought to our interest 10 many years ago, is a British dimension four. But now we have the triple zero — just lately launched by American retailer J Crew and utilized by Abercrombie &amp Fitch which is obtainable in the United kingdom — is a British size zero. It would match a 23 inch waist, the typical size for a child age 6 – 8.

Of course there is outrage about such a dress dimension currently being promoted for grownup females and and I totally agree with condemning this ridiculous move. But the way several content articles report the incident — “Oh no, its back yet again, girls are once once more attempting to make themselves unhealthily skinny.” — doesn’t make sense. It implies that the world’s obsession with skinny and its influence on women’s physique picture had gone away and was only now returning.

It hadn’t. It was often with us. And pointing out a dilemma isn’t the same as fixing it. At the time of the introduction of double zero, many magazines stated how horrible it was, included a few positively captioned images of females with healthful entire body weights — and then it was back to the standing quo. Whilst so numerous women’s magazine appropriately say starving oneself skinny is not healthful and insist we find out to adore ourselves what ever our dimension, flick by means of a number of pages and there they are: incredibly slim younger women in each trend spread. Yet another number of pages and you discover them praising the stylishness of seriously thin women — Alexa Chung and Kate Bosworth are persistently held up as the world’s most stylish women but are definitely nowhere near the average British women’s dimension. Occasionally a slightly curvier women breaks through — Beyoncé for example — but its a rarity.

Alexa Chung is also praised for her stylishness but to many she seems to current an unrealistic body weight Photograph: REX

A latest write-up in Grazia on the topic factors out that “vanity sizing” plays a huge function in the triple zero phenomenon. Retailers re-variety regular sizes to enhance the buyer’s self-esteem — so what was when a size twelve becomes a ten or 8 and as a result so smaller sizes get labelled “zero” or “double zero”. There has been a call to end vanity sizing and Grazia says that there need to be a standardisation of sizes across merchants in Europe and the US. But will this actually assist? Yes you are going to know precisely what size you are in any store, but why would that cease a person from becoming obsessed with currently being skinny? It is the photos that females are bombarded with every day that make the lasting affect: skinny is elegant and placing on excess weight gets you shame (and often a red circle close to the offending spot). Blaming the sizing itself shifts the blame from the magazines and sites to the merchants.

A model on the catwalk for the duration of London Vogue Week, 2007, when dimension zero was in the news due to concern more than the health problems related with it. Seven years later on and we now have dimension triple zero. Photograph: LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images

Some of the articles have also blamed the rise of Instagram and the “skinny selfie”, saying the celebrities who post images of themselves looking extremely slim are the lead to of the triple zero’s creation. But once once again this is shifting the blame to people who naturally believe their self-worth is connected to their slimness. Why do they truly feel the need to have to do this? So they get attention, so they can be called fashionable, so they will not be known as fat. It is essential the media recognises its position in society’s coveting of skinny and actually addresses it — or in the subsequent couple of many years “the rise of the quadruple zero” is most likely to be the headline. Nothing at all alterations. Virtually.

@annamckie

Dimension triple zero: why will not our obsession with super skinny disappear?