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The Rest Is Politics

Struggling or Snowflakes? The Gen Z Mental Health Story

The Rest Is Politics

Goalhanger

News, Politics, Government

4.5 • 11.5K Ratings

šŸ—“ļø 21 May 2026

ā±ļø 21 minutes

šŸ§¾ļø Download transcript

Summary

What's behind the rise in young people being diagnosed with mental health problems? Are members of Gen Z less resilient than older generations? Or are they a product of a society that has failed them? Has therapy culture gone too far? Or not far enough? Why are so many young people out of work? Is it laziness? Is something deeper at play? This week in The Gen Z Story, Vicky SprattĀ  is joined by three guests: psychologist and expert in adolescent mental health, Dr Lucy Foulkes, Shuab Gamote, researcher and co-author of ā€œInside the Mind of a 16-year-oldā€ and "Inside the Mind of a Young NEET" and Freya India, the author behind the book ā€œGirls, The Commodification of Everythingā€. To hear the whole Gen Z series, sign up at therestispolitics.com Get TRIP Plus for Ā£20 for the year by using your student email address. Instagram: ⁠@restispolitics⁠ Twitter: ⁠@restispolitics⁠ Email: ⁠therestispolitics@goalhanger.com⁠ __________ Hosted by: Vicky Spratt Producer: India Dunkley Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Researcher: Olivia Taylor Hooper Exec Producer: Tom Whiter Editorial Director: Emily Kent Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com. That's the rest is politics.com.

0:16.0

Welcome back to the Gen Z story. It's me, Vicky Spratt. This week we're looking at young people's

0:25.7

mental health. This is one of the most important aspects of this series, but it was also the

0:30.9

most difficult to cover. One in five young people in the UK is currently suffering from a mental

0:37.0

health problem. This issue clearly

0:39.1

matters to you. Hundreds of trip listeners wrote in to tell us about their thoughts on the issue.

0:45.4

This episode is a little bit different to what you've heard before because we've actually got

0:49.1

three guests. They've all got a slightly different take on the Gen Z mental health story. We've got the

0:55.6

Oxford psychologist who specialises in adolescent mental health. We've got the young woman who has

1:01.1

written a book about her experiences of growing up online. And we've got the young man, a researcher

1:06.3

who's been travelling the UK and speaking to thousands of young people about their experiences.

1:12.5

We're going to be asking some difficult questions in this episode.

1:15.5

Is there an overdiagnosis problem with young people?

1:18.1

Has therapy culture gone too far?

1:20.8

Or have today's young adults been let down by the housing crisis, relatively low wages,

1:26.4

and expensive university education. So are they

1:29.1

struggling or are they snowflakes? That's what we'll explore in this episode of the Gen Z Mental Health

1:35.1

Story. We'll start by talking to Dr. Lucy Fokes. She's an Oxford University psychologist who

1:41.8

specialises an adolescent mental health. I asked her why she thinks

1:46.2

young people's mental health diagnoses have skyrocketed over the last 20 years.

1:53.1

There's a lot of explanations for what's happening and lots of things are changing in parallel.

1:58.6

So more people are reporting that they have symptoms

...

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