News And Events

Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health has released a report that shows that the physical and sexual health of young people with mental ill-health is largely being ignored. 

Titled ‘Physical Challenge, Wider health impacts for young people with a mental illness’ the report shows that young people who are diagnosed with a mental illness are at a greater risk of poorer physical and sexual health outcomes, because the sole focus of their treatment is being targeted to their mental health at the cost of their physical health.

Orygen’s Associate Director of Research, Professor Eóin Killackey says ‘people with mental illness die up to 30 years earlier than the general population, and they die largely from preventable illnesses related to obesity and tobacco smoking. 

‘Despite being only a quarter of the population, people with mental ill-health smoke nearly half the cigarettes that are produced, and account for nearly 50% of those who die from smoking related illness each year’, he says.

One group particularly impacted by poor health outcomes are young people with first-episode psychosis who are at a heightened risk of rapid weight gain due to the side-effects of some of the medications prescribed to treat the disorder.

‘The statistics are shocking, says Professor Killackey, people with mental ill-health are twice as likely to be obese as the general population, some of which is due to preventable medication side effects.’
The report points to the need to prioritise early intervention treatments that look holistically at the health and wellbeing of young people with mental illness and include a focus on their physical and their sexual health.

Motivating young people to change their behaviours around physical activity and nutrition, including providing them access to allied health professionals such as dieticians, exercise psychologists and sexual health nurses, can improve their physical and mental health outcomes the report shows.

‘We need to address this problem in a number of ways including changing the mental health culture to address the whole person, developing better evidence of what works to help people with mental illness maintain healthy lifestyles and quit smoking, and we need to ensure that when people with mental ill-health see their GP their body is attended to as well as their mind’, adds Professor Killackey.

Available for interview: Professor Eoin Killackey and two young people who can speak on personal experience, Jo Farmer and Maddi O’Gradey.


Download the two page summary

Download Physical challenge: Wider health impacts for young people with a mental illness full report