Report on What does it mean to be healthy?

Smart girls decide for themselves™.

Group Statistics

These statistics tell us more about the group of people who responded to this survey. For example, this is where we talk about gender, age, country of origin, and things like that. This way, we can have a better understanding of what all the results mean -- it's different when a 13-year-old says her biggest concern is teen pregnancy than when a 65-year-old says it, right? Out of 118 total responses: * 103 girls responded, but only 7 boys; 8 people chose not to answer this question. * Most of the people who took this survey were oldest children, followed by youngest children, only children, then middle children. * Very few people who took this survey are from a village or rural area. 108 are from a city, suburb, or town. * Check out the pie chart below to see the ages of those who took this survey! Most were ages 12, 13, and 14. There were some who were over the age of 22!

Age of Survey Respondents

The larger the pie slice, the more that people of that age took this survey.

We wondered how many of you consider yourself to be religious, which might affect how you feel about where you should learn about some of these topics. That's the type of research question you could ask over in the SmartCetner! We found that almost half of you do consider yourself to be religious. Still, exactly 50% of you say that you're either not religious or not sure if you're religious. Check out the bar chart below, and imagine piling the "not sure" bar on top of the "no" bar. See how that adds up?

Religious Association

To read this chart, look along the bottom of the graph to see the categories. Listed on top of each bar is the exact number of people who chose that category. The higher the bar, the more people in that category.

Art Contest

First, we asked you to tell us which sort of topic you would feel comfortable expressing in an entry to an art contest. Then we asked which topics are a big concern in your neighborhood and which topics you are concerned with. We also wanted to know if there were any topics that you feel uncomfortable talking about. Do people who want to enter an art contest have difficulty talking about subjects they would feel comfortable expressing through art? Do they choose to express topics that they are most concerned with, or topics that their community cares more about? These are the sorts of questions that you could find the answers to in our SmartCenter! Look at the graphs below to see more information about how SmartGirls answered our questions. For a quick summary: * Most SmartGirls, if they had to choose, would want to enter an art contest about eating disorders. After that, it is a tie between not entering the contest or submitting a project about personal health issues.

Topics SmartGirls Would Choose for an Art Contest

To read this graph, look along the bottom for the categories and then see how high the bar is. The higher the bar, the more people who chose that category. For an approximate number, match the height of the bar to the numbers on the left.

After finding out that SmartGirls want to express themselves on topics like eating disorders and personal health issues, we wanted to know what sort of topics were being talked about in your communities and neighborhoods. What are you hearing about around town and on the news? What we see in the graph below is that bullying and smoking are talked about the most. Teen pregnancy is also a really big concern, along with sex. What's not really talked about at all? Self-harm, like cutting, or abusing prescription drugs.

Community Health Concerns

To read this graph, look across the bottom at the categories. Check the height of the bar against the numbers on the left to see how many people chose that topic as something talked about in their community.

So if that's what you're hearing about in your community, does that affect what you're concerned with? We asked SmartGirls to tell us what they are MOST concerned with. You might notice that the numbers in the graph above are a lot higher than the numbers in the graph below. That's because SmartGirls could select as many categories as they wanted for the question about what's talked about in the community, but for the question about what they are MOST concerned with, they could only choose one topic. We found that: * SmartGirls are MOST concerned with obesity, which is definitely not talked about the most in your communities and neighborhoods. * Similary, SmartGirls are really concerned with their levels of anxiety and stress. * One category where SmartGirls and their communities do mach up is teen pregnancy. * Surprisingly, not many SmartGirls are concerned about sex or bullying, although both of those topics are huge concerns for their communities. * Although smoking is one of the biggest issues for your communities, NO SmartGirls chose smoking as their biggest concern! * Another area that SmartGirls care a lot about is depression and suicide.

SmartGirls' Biggest Concerns

To read this graph, look along the categories at the bottom and match up the height of their bars with the numbers that run up the left side. The higher the bar, the more SmartGirls chose that category as their BIGGEST concern.

Now that we know what communities care about and what SmartGirls care about, the big question is... are they talking about it? We asked SmartGirls to tell us what they didn't feel comfortable talking about in a group setting. We found: * SmartGirls don't feel comfortable talking about sex or teen pregnancy, even though teen pregnancy is a huge concern for both communities and SmartGirls. Do you SmartGirls have any ideas on how to make this easier to talk about? Write us at sgquickpoll@gmail.com with your ideas! * For many of you, you don't find anything hard to talk about with a group. We think that's excellent, and hope that you inspire others to be comfortable talking about these things when they are with you!

Uncomfortable Topics in a Group Setting

SmartGirls could pick as many topics as they wanted. Check the height of the bar against the numbers on the left to see how many SmartGirls chose each topic.

Now, what people want to talk about and think about are sometimes different than what's really going on. We wanted to know what SmartGirls are really dealing with. One interesting question to ask in the SmartCenter are whether SmartGirls from different areas, such as big cities, experience different things that SmartGirls from small towns. What we found was that the majority of SmartGirls are dealing with peer pressure. Still, that is far from SmartGirls' biggest concerns. Does that mean that SmartGirls feel comfortable dealing with it and don't think they need any help in that area? Tell us! sgfeedback@gmail.com A lot of SmartGirls also see bullying, alcohol abuse, use of illegal drugs, smoking, depression and suicide, and anxiety and stress. It's interesting that a lot of the most common things SmartGirls see are not top priorities for communities or SmartGirls themselves. However, most of these issues are top priorities for SmartGirls; what do you suppose the reasons are that communities have other concerns? Even though teen pregnancy is a major concern for both communities and SmartGirls, it is far from the most frequent problem facing friends, classmates, and peers. Why do you think that SmartGirls worry about pregnancy more than other problems that are more common? Do you think it's that level of worry that makes pregnancy happen less?

Real Problems Facing Peers

If you want to find the topic that is the biggest problem, look for the tallest bar, then see which topic it corresponds with. Which issues don't affect peers much? Do you think that those sorts of things are just talked about less?

Something we found that was interesting is that the topics that SmartGirls feel need to be talked about more correspond better with their personal biggest concerns than with the stuff they see affecting their peers. Perhaps that means they feel that the biggest issues with peers are already discussed enough. So what could use more work? * Depression and suicide should be talked about more, say most SmartGirls. * Eating disorders, anxiety and stress, teen pregnancy, and domestic violence should be talked about more. * It's less important to most SmartGirls to talk about smoking/tobacco, or else they feel like that is covered enough; this makes sense because smoking is the biggest concern for communities, so I guess SmartGirls are already hearing a great deal about this!

Topics That Need to Be Talked About More

Check the height of the bars against the numbers up the left size to see what each height means (the number of SmartGirls who chose that topic).

Define: "Healthy"

We've been giving SmartGirls lots of different topics, but "health" is a really broad term. When we say that something is "healthy" or not, we could mean a lot of things. So, to clarify, we asked SmartGirls to tell us what they think "being healthy" means. There were three really stand-out categories. SmartGirls said that healthy means: * Knowing how to cope with problems and stay positive about life * Being fit and getting enough nutrition * Having balanced relationships, loving others, and loving yourself How did you feel about the other categories? Some SmartGirls were honest and chose how they define health for themselves, even if they wouldn't use that standard against others; do you know someone who refuses to cry in public, feels fat when it's not true, or seems to care more about pleasing friends than making good personal choices? Do you have a double standard on what it means to be healthy, and hold yourself against higher standards than you would a friend?

The Definition of Healthy

Health is a huge buzzword these days. Yoga is something that most people have tried at least once; some people can even take yoga for a class at high school. A lot of people are learning about nutrition, rates of vegetarianism are increasing, and there are hit reality TV shows that show how obese people lose large amounts of weight and keep it off. With all that buzz about being healthy and staying healthy, how many SmartGirls feel the same way? As a matter of fact, we found that almost every SmartGirl thinks it's important to stay and be healthy, and that 63% think it's VERY important. Only three respondents don't really care!

Importance of Staying Healthy

The larger the slice, the more people responded to that category. "Very Important" to stay healthy is by far the biggest category, followed by "Somewhat Important" and "Not So Much."

No matter how much we want to stay healthy, actually being healthy is a different story. Much of whether or not we can be healthy depends on who we have to support us. We asked SmartGirls whether or not they have support from people in their life who help them stay healthy. We found that 109 out of 118 SmartGirls do have "lots" or "some" support from family and friends. We're glad!

Support To Be Healthy

The larger the pie slice, the more people in that group. "Lots" and "some" support are the largest categories, followed by "No Answer" and "Not so much."

The Support of Health Education

Another kind of support to stay healthy is education. We wanted to figure out how you are learning about health -- or whether you're learning about health at all. What we found was that most SmartGirls said their schools on focused on health "some," and not very many focused on health "lots." More often than "lots," school focus on health was, well, "not so much."

How Much Schools Focus On Health

Check the height of the bar against the numbers up the left side of the graph. The numbers there and above each bar tell you how many SmartGirls selected that category.

So we thought we would like at the kinds of activities that schools do offer, compared to what SmartGirls felt like SHOULD be provided (and what wasn't necessary). To help you read the graphs below, keep in mind that 118 SmartGirls took this survey. So, when you see the number on the left of the graph, that many SmartGirls out of 118 have the activity at their school. You see that 64% of SmartGirls have gym class and athletics, but only 33% have health class or health and gym class. On the other hand, far fewer SmartGirls seem to think that school is where they want their health education. Fewer than 38% of SmartGirls want sports at school, and there are 0 SmartGirls who want all the options! Most SmartGirls would go for some sort of after-school health activity, but it's still barely half of SmartGirls.

Available Health-related Activities at School

The taller the bar, the more SmartGirls had that activity available at their school.

Activities SmartGirls Would Like At School

Higher bars indicate that more SmartGirls selected that option, while topics with no bar show that no SmartGirls selected that option.

Personal Support: Or How We Help Ourselves

In the graph below, we show how SmartGirls responded to the question, "which kind of health do you spend the most time maintaining?" Most SmartGirls responded that they spend the most time maintaining their physical health and their emotional health. They spent the fewest amount of time making sure that they have healthy relationships or good mental health. This reflects what we saw earlier, that teens want to learn more about depression and suicide, bullying, peer pressure, and anxiety and stress. Perhaps with more knowledge, teens can spend more time taking care of their mental health and forming healthy relationships.

Where Most Time is Spent Maintaining Health

In pie charts, the larger slices of the pie had the most responses to that category. The opposite is true for the small slices.

Learning More About Health

We asked a long time ago what the neighborhoods and communities of SmartGirl were most concerned with. Now we want to know what SmartGirls think their communities should be MORE concerned with. As expected, SmartGirls think communities should be more concerned with the topics that SmartGirls themselves find to be the most important topics: * Teen Pregnancy * Depression and Suicide * Anxiety and Stress

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If the community at large is expected to care more about those topics, who do SmartGirls think should be responsible for educating everyone? SmartGirls said that they think people should learn about health issues mostly from school, followed closely by family. A few other SmartGirls think that the best way for people to learn about health issues is through the TV and the media. That would be great if we could trust them! Do you think you would spend a lot of time watching programming on health issues?

Where To Learn About Health

The highest bars correspond to the most frequently selected categories.

If the bar chart above shows where people ought to learn about health, then the table below shows where SmartGirls are actually learning about health. The table shows that the greatest percentage of SmartGirls learn about health issues at school (32.11%) followed by friends (28.44%). After that, they learn about health from family (22.02%). Most people are learning about health issues from friends; where do you think friends are learning about health issues?

Where Health Is Talked About

count percent community family 24 22.02 school 35 32.11 religious institution 5 4.59 other community 2 1.83 tvmedia 12 11.01 friends 31 28.44

The "count" tells exactly how many people selected each category and the "percent" says what percent of the total responses each category represents.

For many SmartGirls, health issues are learned about the hard way. Friends may know about particular issues because they are dealing with them right now. We asked SmartGirls to tell us what they are experiencing. The table below shows that the greatest percentage of SmartGirls directly experience bullying, peer pressure, and anxiety and stress. Notice that only 1.47% of all the SmartGirls who responded to our survey have experienced teen pregnancy! Only 4.4% of our SmartGirls smoke; do you think that's because of all the community awareness of the topic, or do you think that the community awareness reflects an over-blown concern? Only 11 SmartGirls out of the 118 who took this survey are having sex. On the other hand, 30 of our survey respondents report that they deal with depression and suicidal tendencies. To us, that shows how schools and communities really need to do a lot more to support teens in that area, and not just in preventing pregnancy; at least for girls aged 12-14, like most of our SmartGirls.

Issues SmartGirls are Directly Involved In

count percent affected teen pregnancy 5 1.47 gang violence 4 1.17 domestic violence 10 2.93 bullying 37 10.85 alcohol abuse 18 5.28 illegal drugs 13 3.81 prescription drug 5 1.47 smoking/tobacco 15 4.4 depression and suicide 30 8.8 peer pressure 37 10.85 sex 11 3.23 hiv/aids 4 1.17 discrimination 19 5.57 diabetes 5 1.47 asthma 15 4.4 obesity 14 4.11 high blood pressure 7 2.05 cancer 5 1.47 eating disorders 19 5.57 anxiety stress 45 13.2 none 20 5.87 cutting 1 0.29 all 1 0.29 rape 1 0.29

Read across the table to see the exact number of SmartGirls who are involved with that issue out of 118. The percentage of the total respondents is in the column after that.

On the other hand, things that affect our close peers, families, and friends often affect us significantly, but in a different way. We learn from them, but the issue becomes very important to us personally as well. So what is going on with the people we are close to? The biggest things the people close to us are experiencing are pregnancy, bullying, smoking, depression, peer pressure, sex, discrimination, asthma, obesity, and anxiety. That is no small list! For almost half of all SmartGirls, someone they know is being bullied. This is also where it becomes clear why teen pregnancy is something so many girls worry about. It seems that 1/3 of you know someone who has dealth with the issue.

Which Health Issues Affect Those We Know

See all the options along the bottom and compare their heights to see which categories are more or less affecting SmartGirl communities.

Talking About Health

It's so hard for many SmartGirls to talk about these topics. They don't want health-related activities at school, and yet that's where they think they should learn about health. They learn mostly from their friends. Wouldn't it be great if there were a social way that SmartGirls could learn from each other without having to talk? Maybe a function that could be held at a school, so that SmartGirls could easily access it? We wanted to know how SmartGirls communicate about health issues. How do SmartGirls express themselves? * Creative writing * Art projects * Talking

SmartGirls Express Themselves

Look at the graph to see how SmartGirls express themselves! Bigger slices mean that more SmartGirls chose that option.

Knowing all those ideas about why topics are hard to talk about, which art show would you go to: one you do know a lot about, or one you don't? Our SmartGirls said that most would go to a show they didn't know a lot about to learn more and increase their empathy. Others would go to the one they did know a lot about in order to see how others express themselves and get an idea that they are not alone.

Familiar Show vs. One You Don't Know Well

Which side of the pie is bigger? That's the one with the most responses.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!

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