Gen Z's angst is dismantling the long-established happiness curve and confounding researchers
The happiness curve has been a relatively predictable U-shape for a long time: You are at your happiest when you're young, then happiness declines in midlife, only to rise once again in old age. But researchers have discovered that the curve is flattening, as happiness is dipping earlier in life than it used to.
The results came out of the Global Flourishing Study, a collaboration between researchers at Harvard and Baylor University who analyzed data collected by Gallup from more than 200,000 people in 22 countries. They discovered that, on average, young adults ages 18 to 29 were unhappy, while grappling with poor mental and physical health, negative perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, financial security, and the quality of their relationships.
Using Harvard's Flourishing Measure—a composite of happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships—researchers determined how much each participant was flourishing in their life. Now, they found, the flourishing curve is flat until around age 50, when it begins to rise again.
Researchers found this to be true across several countries, including the UK and Australia—but the well-being gap of younger and older adults was the widest in the U.S.
'It is a pretty stark picture,' Tyler J. VanderWeele, the lead author of the study and director of Harvard's Human Flourishing Program, told the New York Times. 'Are we sufficiently investing in the well-being of youth?'
Recent research shows that life satisfaction and happiness have steadily been declining among young adults for the last decade. In the U.S., the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBSS) has reported a dramatic rise in anxiety and depression among American Gen Zers, especially young women. In 2023, 53% of female high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, compared with 28% of boys.
'Young people are not doing as well as they used to be,' the Global Flourishing Study authors wrote. 'While causes are likely diverse, mental health concerns with young adults are clearly on the rise.'
A 2023 national survey from Harvard also found that young adults (ages 18 to 25), suffered from higher rates of anxiety and depression than younger teens. That study concluded the following factors were driving Gen Z's declining mental health:
A lack of meaning and direction: The survey found that over half (58%) young adults reported that they lacked 'meaning or purpose' in their lives in the previous month, with half also reporting that their mental health was negatively influenced by 'not knowing what to do with my life.'
Financial worries: 56% of young adults were concerned about their financial well-being.
Pressure to achieve: Half of young adults expressed that achievement pressure was negatively influencing their mental health.
Feeling that the world is falling apart: 45% of young adults reported that a general "sense that things are falling apart' caused their mental health to decline.
Loneliness and social isolation: Nearly half (44%) of young adults reported a sense of not mattering to others, while 34% reported they were lonely.
Social and political issues: Widespread issues such as climate change, gun violence in schools, and concerns about political leadership were among the topics weighing on Gen Z.
For more on happiness:
Researchers have followed over 700 people since 1938 to find the keys to happiness. Here's what they discovered
Happier parents tap into this 1 emotion
Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historic low ranking in the annual World Happiness Report
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
11 hours ago
- Forbes
3 New Studies Remind Us Eating Well Is About More Than Just Weight
Healthy foods may matter more than weight alone. getty If you've ever made a genuine, perhaps painstaking, effort to eat healthier, only to find that your weight doesn't budge, it's easy to feel like you're failing. Or like your body isn't behaving like it should. But a few new studies remind us that this isn't always true. New research published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology by a team at Ben-Gurion and Harvard Universities followed more than 700 adults with abdominal obesity who committed to different types of healthy eating—low-fat, low-carb, Mediterranean, and green-Mediterranean—for up to two years. Nearly a third of them didn't lose weight, and some even gained weight. But their health improved in meaningful ways. Perhaps not surprisingly, the people who did lose weight saw the most change in their heart and metabolic stats: each kilogram lost was linked to a 1.44% increase in HDL cholesterol (the good kind), a 1.37% reduction in triglycerides (blood fats), a 2.46% drop in insulin, a 2.79% drop in leptin (the hormone signaling hunger), as well as reductions in blood pressure, liver fat, and liver enzymes. But the good news for some of us with more stubborn scales was that in those whose weight didn't change (who tended to be older adults and women), the researchers also measured higher HDL cholesterol, lower levels of leptin, and a reduction in visceral fat (the type that surrounds organs and increases disease risk). These are not meaningless changes—they can reduce long-term risk for heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. Also revealing was when the team looked into the biology behind these patterns, they identified 12 DNA methylation sites that predicted long-term weight loss outcomes. These sites may help explain why two people can follow the same diet with different results. 'We have been conditioned to equate weight loss with health, and weight loss-resistant individuals are often labeled as failures,' said lead author and Harvard Chan School postdoctoral researcher Anat Yaskolka Meir in a statement. 'Our findings reframe how we define clinical success. People who do not lose weight can improve their metabolism and reduce their long-term risk for disease. That's a message of hope, not failure.' This idea—that health and weight loss are not synonymous—echoes across two other new studies, too. (Note that these two were presented at the American Society for Nutrition conference last week, and not yet published in peer-review journals.) In a massive analysis of nearly 200,000 people over several decades, researchers found that the quality of food mattered more than whether someone followed a low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Neither diet was better than the other: Low-carb and low-fat diets both lowered the risk of developing heart disease by about 15% compared to lower quality foods. The difference came from just that—the quality of foods. Eating more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts rather than potatoes, refined grains, and saturated fats and proteins from animal-based foods. In other words, whether your diet has more fat or fewer carbs may be less important than whether you're eating real food vs. processed foods. A third study focused simply on…beans. Researchers found that a daily serving of black beans or chickpeas significantly lowered cholesterol and inflammation in people with pre-diabetes over just 12 weeks. While this one only looked at people with pre-diabetes, lots of other research before it has shown health benefits of eating beans for people without pre-diabetes. The new studies should bring some hope to those of us who were raised to treat diet success like a numbers game, with weight the only outcome that matters. The reality is that in many cases, the body is doing far more behind the scenes than we know.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Coffee Could Be The Secret to Healthy Aging For Women, Scientists Discover
The daily ritual of imbibing a hot cup of freshly brewed and fragrant coffee isn't just good for the soul – it may be one of the ways to smooth the road to healthy aging for women. In a study of 47,513 women in the US with data spanning 30 years, scientists have found that long-term moderate coffee consumption in mid-life is positively correlated with the markers of healthy aging. "While past studies have linked coffee to individual health outcomes, our study is the first to assess coffee's impact across multiple domains of aging over three decades," says Sara Mahdavi, nutrition scientist at Harvard University and the University of Toronto. "The findings suggest that caffeinated coffee – not tea or decaf – may uniquely support aging trajectories that preserve both mental and physical function." To assess the long-term impact of a daily cuppa (or two) on aging, Mahdavi and her colleagues made a careful study of data collected as part of the Nurses' Health Study, a series of epidemiological studies that examine the long-term impacts of various factors on the health of nurses in the US. They examined health and dietary intake data collected since 1984, all the way up to 2016. Healthy aging was defined as living to 70 years or older, maintaining good physical function, staying free from 11 major chronic diseases, and with no cognitive, mental health, or memory impairment. The researchers also adjusted for other factors that might influence health, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, level of physical activity, and body-mass index. By 2016, the researchers identified 3,706 women who qualified as healthy agers. For this group, around 80 percent of their average daily caffeine intake came in the form of three small cups' worth of coffee. By contrast, tea and decaffeinated coffee were not associated with any of the markers of healthy aging; and cola intake was associated with a negative impact for the markers of healthy aging. In other words, coffee had a positive effect; tea and decaf were neutral; and cola had a negative effect. For the healthy agers, each additional cup of coffee, up to five small cups a day, boosted the odds of healthy aging by between 2 and 5 percent. For the cola drinkers, each cup per day reduced the odds of healthy aging by 20 to 26 percent. Of course, coffee isn't a magic bullet for your health; you should still look after yourself in other ways, Mahdavi says. "These results, while preliminary, suggest that small, consistent habits can shape long-term health. Moderate coffee intake may offer some protective benefits when combined with other healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, a healthy diet, and avoiding smoking," she explains. "While this study adds to prior evidence suggesting coffee intake may be linked with healthy aging, the benefits from coffee are relatively modest compared to the impact of overall healthy lifestyle habits and warrant further investigation." The research has been presented at the NUTRITION 2025 conference in Orlando, Florida. Texas Woman Dies From Brain-Eating Amoeba After Flushing Sinuses Menopause Drug Reduces Breast Cancer Growth In Clinical Trial Bowel Cancer in Young People Is Rising – Here's How to Reduce Your Risk
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism
The Harvard psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker appeared on the podcast of Aporia, an outlet whose owners advocate for a revival of race science and have spoken of seeking 'legitimation by association' by platforming more mainstream figures. The appearance underlines past incidents in which Pinker has encountered criticism for his association with advocates of so-called 'human biodiversity', which other academics have called a 'rebranding' of racial genetic essentialism and scientific racism. Pinker's appearance marks another milestone in the efforts of many in Silicon Valley and rightwing media and at the fringes of science to rehabilitate previously discredited models of a biologically determined racial hierarchy. Related: Revealed: International 'race science' network secretly funded by US tech boss Patrik Hermansson, a researcher at UK anti-racism non-profit Hope Not Hate, said that Pinker's 'decision to appear on Aporia, a far-right platform for scientific racism, provides an invaluable service to an extremist outlet by legitimising its content and attracting new followers'. He added: 'By lending his Harvard credentials to Aporia, Pinker contributes to the normalisation and spread of dangerous, discredited ideas.' The Guardian emailed Pinker for comment using his Harvard email address but received no response. Nor did he reply when approached through his university press office or his publishers. In the hour-long recording published this week, Pinker engaged in a wide-ranging discussion about economic progress, artificial intelligence and social policy with host Noah Carl. During the podcast, Pinker expressed agreement with claims made by Charles Murray, the author of The Bell Curve, a prominent figure in the 'human biodiversity' movement that seeks to promote race-based theories of intelligence, and like Pinker a one-time participant in a human biodiversity email list convened by Steve Sailer. When Carl cited 'evidence collected by sociologists like Charles Murray suggesting that part of the family breakdown in some communities in America seems to be attributable to the state taking over the traditional function of the father', Pinker responded: 'I think that is a problem.' He added: 'It is a huge class-differentiated phenomenon, as Murray and others write it out.' Reporting last October in the Guardian revealed that Aporia operates within a broader network of groups and individuals seeking to mainstream racial pseudoscience. The initiative had been secretly funded by US tech entrepreneur Andrew Conru until he was contacted for comment on the reporting, and Aporia's editors are connected to far-right extremists, including Erik Ahrens, whom German authorities have designated a 'rightwing extremist' posing an 'extremely high' danger. The investigation also found that Aporia was owned by the Human Diversity Foundation, a Wyoming LLC founded in 2022 by Emil Kirkegaard, a Danish self-described eugenicist and race scientist who has spent years attempting to access genetic datasets, and maintaining publishing platforms including OpenPsych and Mankind Quarterly that serve a network of race-science researchers. The same reporting revealed that in secretly recorded conversations, Aporia co-founder Matthew Frost expressed ambitions for it to 'become something bigger, become that policy, front-facing thinktank, and bleed into the traditional institutions'. He also said that the publication had recruited mainstream writers for the purposes of 'legitimacy via association'. Carl, listed as editor on Aporia's masthead, was dismissed from a Cambridge fellowship in 2019 after an investigation found that he had published articles in collaboration with far-right extremists. He spoke at least twice at the eugenicist London Conference on Intelligence and in a 2016 paper wrote that anti-immigrant stereotypes were 'reasonably accurate' in relation to their propensity for crime. The 2016 conference program, which Carl attended, featured a quote from early 20th-century psychologist Edward Thorndike stating: 'Selective breeding can alter man's capacity to learn, to keep sane, to cherish justice or to be happy.' Aporia's podcast has previously featured prominent white nationalists including Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish psychologist who was suspended and reinstated in 2006 as a professor at the University of Aarhus over his research linking gender and intelligence, and who in 2017 spoke to the white nationalist American Renaissance conference. In his Aporia appearance, Nyborg connected immigration and crime, claiming that 'the more genetically inhomogeneous a population is, the more critical it becomes in terms of social unrule, or what you'll call that social disturbance, criminality and so on'. Another former guest, Jared Taylor, is American Renaissance's founder. Pinker is world famous as the author of bestselling books including The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. His work has emphasized themes including universal human cognitive abilities and the decline of violence over time, and has previously advocated for 'colorblind equality'. His appearance on Aporia, however, follows a recent pattern of controversy around his connections to figures promoting eugenics and scientific racism, including Steve Sailer. Pinker included a Sailer essay in a collection of American science writing. According to science writer Angela Saini's Superior, a history of the revival of race science, Pinker was in turn an early participant in Sailer's Human Biodiversity email discussion group. His ties to Sailer drew criticism from other writers including Malcolm Gladwell. The Guardian has previously reported on the recent revival of Sailer, a 'white supremacist' and a 'proponent of scientific racism', by the far-right publisher Passage Press. A 2021 academic study led by UCLA academics identified Pinker as one of the 'political centrists' who have 'played a role in legitimizing the ideas of the human biodiversity movement' in a way that has benefited white nationalists, despite not being core proponents themselves. Hermannson, the Hope Not Hate researcher, said: 'Considering the coverage Aporia has received and its long list of racist contributors, it's hard for Pinker to argue he engaged with it unknowingly.'
