Often, kids with teen depression will have a noticeable change in their thinking and behavior. They may have no motivation and even become withdrawn, closing their bedroom door after school and staying in their room for hours.

There are multiple reasons why a teenager might become depressed. For example, teens can develop feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy over their grades. School performance, social status with peers, sexual orientation, or family life can each have a major effect on how a teen feels. Sometimes, teen depression may result from environmental stress.

But sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, teens become depressed. Many factors can contribute to depression. Studies show that some depressed people have too much or too little of certain brain chemicals.

Unrealistic academic, social, or family expectations can create a strong sense of rejection and can lead to deep disappointment. When things go wrong at school or at home, teens often overreact. Many young people feel that life is not fair or that things "never go their way." They feel "stressed out" and confused. To make matters worse, teens are bombarded by conflicting messages from parents, friends and society.

A depressed teen may self-medicate with alcohol to escape the terrible sense of hopelessness. Unfortunately, alcohol only exacerbates the problem. Drugs like ecstasy and other club-drug uppers may even make them feel "normal" when for weeks they have felt miserable. The impact of such drugs on serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins, chemicals in the brain that regulate mood, can be devastating for children and adolescents.

While some teens self-medicate to treat depression, other teens end up with a serious mental disorder due to abuse of drugs or alcohol. Abusive drinking or drug use can seriously undermine your child's physical, emotional, and psychological health.

Teenagers face a host of pressures, from the changes of puberty to questions about who they are and where they fit in. The natural transition from child to adult can also bring parental conflict as teens start to assert their independence.

Depression can destroy the very essence of a teenager’s personality, causing an overwhelming sense of sadness, despair, or anger.

Teenage depression isn’t just bad moods and the occasional melancholy—it’s a serious problem that impacts every aspect of a teen’s life. Teen depression can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, self-loathing and self-mutilation, pregnancy, violence, and even suicide.

In addition to those found in adult depression, causes of teen and childhood depression, or apparent triggers, include additional and often unique situations.

Depression in adolescents may be difficult to spot because sulkiness, irritability, antisocial behaviour, negativity and withdrawal often go hand in hand with growing up.

ow the fastest rate of increase in depression is among young people. Again, this backs up the fact that most depression is not caused by chemical imbalances, whether in adolescents, teenagers or adults.

Depression is more common in people whose blood relatives also have the condition.

Traumatic events during childhood, such as physical or emotional abuse, or loss of a parent, may cause changes in the brain that make a person more susceptible to depression.

Depression symptoms likely won't get better on their own — and they may get worse or lead to other problems if untreated. Depressed teenagers may be at risk of suicide, even if signs and symptoms don't appear to be severe.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between ups and downs that are just part of being a teenager and teen depression.

teens can experience depression that is so severe that they may think about or attempt suicide.

A teenager who has depression may engage in careless and reckless behaviors that could be life threatening. Such behaviors could include drinking while driving, driving at very high speeds, mixing drugs and alcohol, engaging in high risk sexual acts and hanging out with people who are dangerous.

One of the symptoms of depression is feelings of worthlessness. This feeling will cause a teenâ??s self-esteem to decrease. They will feel worse about things such as their looks, their abilities and their worthiness.

Eating disorders give depressed teens some form of control in their life. They cannot control how they feel when they are depressed, but they can have power over food and their food intake.

Substances, such as drugs and alcohol, may be abused by teens with depression as a way to reduce their symptoms

depression in teens can affect their ability to concentrate and maintain their energy levels. This may cause them to have poor attendance at school, a decrease in their academic performance and an increase in getting into trouble with school personal.

In major depressive disorder—the most familiar form of depression—the cluster of symptoms that define depression occur in what may be severe episodes that tend to last from seven to nine months.  But there is also another form of depression called dysthymic disorder, in which the symptoms are milder, but they last longer, measured in years.

In adolescent depression, the thing people tend to notice first is withdrawal, or when the teenager stops doing things she usually likes to do. There might be other changes in her mood, including sadness or irritability. Or in her behavior, including, appetite, energy level, sleep patterns and academic performance.

Anxiety and depression occur in both genders, but by the teenage years, girls are much more at risk than boys. Before puberty, the prevalence of mood disorders is about the same in boys and girls—3 to 5 percent. But by mid-adolescence girls are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with a mood disorder as boys, with the prevalence at adult levels, 14 to 20 percent. 

Although schools can now get six cents more per lunch to help cover the cost of more fruits, vegetables and whole grains to meet new requirements, the increase doesn’t cover all the changes, she notes.

Food begins to lose nutrition as soon as it is harvested.

obviously fresher foods that are grown on better soils are going to have more nutrients. But people are not nutrient-deprived.

00-mile diet — even in winter — was almost certainly more nutritious than what the average American was eating. That doesn’t mean it is necessary to eat locally in order to be healthy.