In some areas of Finland, a full 25% of primary school boys are on ADHD medication, despite the estimate being 5-8% of children globally might have ADHD. That is a pretty massive difference of up to 500%, but I guess it must be something in the water, and not due to over prescription. In another medication trend, 11.5% of women between the ages of 18-29 were prescribed SSRI anti-depressants last year. For men, it was 4.4% last year. But perhaps more troubling is that girls in the 13-17 year gap has more than doubled, from 3.1% to 7.1% in the last decade. What is interesting is that the report said that anti-depressant prescriptions have "levelled-off" at a historical high, probably because of the recognition of ADHD symptoms. Meaning that rather than anti-depressants, they are put on ADHD medication instead.
While I recognise that there are plenty of times that medication is useful and necessary, I have lots of issues with medicating like this based on behavioural symptoms, because behaviour can give a false positive for a behavioural condition. Sounds silly, I know. But if a behaviour is conditioned by the environment to become a habit, then is it a mental problem like ADHD or depression? By my estimation, certain behaviours can look like a mental problem, but are not. For instance, attention deficit might be the way a person is, or it could be caused by the way a person has been trained to behave - for example with a constant stream of short-form content, gaming and a lack of activity that requires attention from a young age. A lot of boys these days have been raised on screens that provide an environment that nurtures a lack of attention span - so is that really ADHD?
What about for depression?
Key Characteristics and Symptoms:
- Emotional Characteristics: Persistent sadness, tearfulness, or feelings of emptiness. Feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or hopelessness. Increased irritability, restlessness, or frustration.
- Behavioral and Cognitive Characteristics: Loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities (anhedonia). Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions. Social withdrawal from friends and family. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
- Physical Characteristics: Fatigue and lack of energy. Significant weight loss or gain, or increased/decreased appetite. Sleep disturbances, such as insomnia or sleeping too much. Unexplained aches, pains, headaches, or cramps.
That is a lot of symptoms and there are many more, but I wonder how many of them could also be triggered by the environment, the way people consume content and what activities they choose to do. Because I would suspect that if a person spends the majority of their time scrolling short-form social feeds alone, looking at content that increases feelings of insecurity (in many forms), doesn't move enough, doesn't socialise enough, and doesn't create enough, they are going to tick a lot of those boxes that are used to describe depression.
Untrue.
Back in the past, for sure. If you saw an animal looking, walking and sounding like a duck, it was almost certainly a duck. But that is not the case when it comes to many things these days, including behavioural issues. Using this heuristic means that there are going to be a great deal of false-positives, just like believing every image of a person or video showing a situation these days is the truth, is going to do the same.
Behaviours are trainable which means that while in some cases there can be a true underlying medical condition that causes it, in other situations it isn't going to be the case at all. It is making an assumption based on the result, without looking at the conditions that lead to that result. For a visualised example, if someone has a tan, the assumption is that they spent time in the sun, whereas it could be that they have used a tanning product or put themselves under a tanning lamp. The preconditions matter, because no matter how much that person "stays out of the sun" if they are tanning in another way, the results aren't going to change.
And what I assume now is happening is that overmedication is being used for many result conditions, because it is an easier "solution" than affecting behavioural change. It isn't just for mental conditions either of course, because there are other ones like obesity caused by lack of exercise and poor diet, or stomach issues caused from the wrong eating habits, or cancers caused by just about everything manufactured. If we changed our collective behaviours, what would happen to many of these result conditions we are currently medicating?
I have heard multiple parents who are pushing for ADHD and depression medication for their primary school age children, as if that is the solution best fit for their child. And then I see the children, sitting the next to them, scrolling through games and phones and on social media platforms. I personally see it as a form of child abuse, but since it isn't illegal, nothing gets done. And while I am not saying that there is never the place for some medications, I do think that a lot of what is happening now is detrimental to the future of these kids and is far more likely to have many other unintended negative consequences and side-effects that will plague them for their entire lives.
We all want to feel good. But if we aren't doing the things that lead us to feel good long-term, we are going to lead ourselves into a state where feeling good becomes impossible without chemical intervention. And even then, it is likely that it will mean we will need more and more intervention if we haven't changed our behaviours that led to the condition in the first place.
A quack is an unqualified person, charlatan, or impostor who pretends to have medical knowledge, skills, or credentials they do not possess.
If it looks like a duck...
Taraz
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