Approaches to Understanding Youth Well-Being

Abstract

Despite young people being the population group least likely to experience the burden of disease, significant attention is paid to the “problem” of youth well-being. Young people and children are often discussed in terms of their risk status, whether “at-risk” and in need of protection, or engaged in risk-taking and in need of guidance or education. Traditionally health has been understood as the absence of disease; however, the term “well-being” is increasingly used to conjure a broader notion of physical, mental, social, material, and civic health. The attainment of “well-being” has gathered an increasingly idealized and individualized focus and has also become a catchall descriptor conjur..