Millions of US children are on medication for behavioural problems and depression – but what are the long-term effects? Photographer Baptiste Lignel followed six boys and girls to find out. Introduction by Sarah BoseleyIn America,medication is becoming almost as much a staple of childhood as Disney and McDonald’s. Kids pack their pills for school or college along with their lunch money. Some are taking drugs for depression and anxiety, others for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The right drugs at the right time can save young people from profound distress and enable them to concentrate in lesson. But some adolescents, and critics say,are given medication to mask the ordinary emotional turmoil of growing up; there is a risk that they will never learn to live without it.
According to America’s Centers for Disease Control, 11% of four- to 17-year-olds in the US possess been diagnosed with ADHD, or a label for those who are disruptive in lesson and unable to concentrate; just over 6% are taking medication. But the official figure hides enormous variation across regions and lesson. Numbers are very tall in the white,middle-lesson east coast population, says Ilina Singh, or professor of neuroscience and society at Oxford University,while there is under-diagnosis in poor white populations and among ethnic minorities.
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Source: theguardian.com