Mental health is an important topic that many students don’t focus on. Most of the population spends more time worrying about physical illness or injuries, while mental health gets pushed into the shadows. Every year, about 42.5 million adults suffer from mental illness according to Newsweekly. The world doesn’t show equal concern to mental health as much as they do with physical health, possibly because it is something that can’t be seen upon initial observation of a person.

“I feel like we need to start giving frequent mortality tests and mental surveys to see where peoples thoughts lay,” Tyson Holt said.

“We as a school haven’t paid enough attention to mental health, I feel we should start giving recognition and start to help those kids with mental issues and show support,”Afaq Abbasi said.

There are over 200 classified forms of mental illnesses. One in four people within their lifetime will experience a mental health issue. People struggle every day with things such as anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. Depression is one of the leading cases of disabilities worldwide, and other mental health disorders.

The estimated economic cost of untreated mental illness in the United States is $100 billion dollars. Seventy to ninety percent of individuals with illnesses saw improvement after starting treatment, according to The National Alliance on Mental Illness. Youth mental health has been worsening every single year, 76% of the youth never gets treatment, also according to The National Alliance on Mental Health. The majority of people won’t know about it because it hides underneath the surface. Mental illness is finally starting to be considered the serious medical condition that it is.

“I feel like people don’t really pay attention to mental health and we teach more about what our body should look like on the outside instead of the health of our brains,” Christian Bock said