The recent article by KXAN, titled “How Climate Change Impacts Children’s Mental, Physical Health,” claims that climate change is harming children in numerous ways. [emphasis, links added]
However, this article is false, and its narrative misses the forest for the trees. The real threats to children’s mental and physical health are much closer to home, and they have little, if anything, to do with climate change.
Issues like the alarming rise in childhood obesity and the pervasive addiction to video games and online content are far more immediate, damaging, and scientifically supported contributors to declining health in today’s youth.
To begin with, let’s consider childhood obesity, a crisis that has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and many other countries.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents in the U.S. has tripled since the 1970s.
As of 2020, nearly 1 in 5 children in the United States was obese, with rates even higher in some demographic groups. Obesity significantly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions, which can persist into adulthood.
Similarly, screen addiction and excessive online engagement are wreaking havoc on children’s mental and physical well-being.
A study published in BMC Public Health (2022) found that screen time among children doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some children spending an average of 7.7 hours per day on screens.
Prolonged exposure to video games and online content is linked to poor sleep, depression, anxiety, and even delayed developmental milestones.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has warned that excessive screen time can erode family bonds, diminish attention spans, and lead to social isolation.
Both of these factors—obesity and screen addiction—are immediate, observable, and well-documented.
In contrast, attributing children’s health problems to climate change requires a long chain of speculative links that lack the same level of direct, causal evidence.
For example, the KXAN article vaguely mentions that “extreme weather” and “air pollution” are harming children, but these claims fail to consider the strides we’ve made in pollution reduction and public health over the past decades.
Air quality in the U.S. has improved dramatically since the implementation of the Clean Air Act, with data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showing a 78% decline in aggregate emissions of air pollutants between 1970 and 2020.
Similarly, according to actual data, deaths from extreme weather are down dramatically over the last century.
Extreme weather events are either down or not increasing as evidenced by actual data showing tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, and floods have not increased.
While physical health concerns like obesity and screen addiction are measurable and addressable, there’s another factor impacting children’s mental health that receives far too little attention: media-driven fear about climate change.
Constant stories suggesting that the world is on the brink of collapse due to climate change are having a significant psychological impact on children and teenagers.
In 2021, a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health surveyed 10,000 young people in 10 countries and found that 59% reported feeling “very or extremely worried” about climate change.
Over 45% said their concerns about climate change negatively affected their daily life. But here’s the kicker: this fear isn’t the result of observable, lived experiences—it’s the product of relentless, alarmist messaging.
The KXAN article itself contributes to this problem by presenting climate change as a direct, existential threat to children’s health without offering any balance or context.
Children, who lack the critical thinking skills and life experience to assess such claims, are left feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. Psychiatrist Dr. Carol Lieberman has warned that such “climate anxiety” is a growing phenomenon, exacerbated by exaggerated rhetoric from activists and media outlets.
Even the American Psychological Association (APA) has flagged this issue, coining the term “eco-anxiety” to describe the stress and fears that some individuals feel due to climate change narratives.
However, what the APA fails to emphasize is that this anxiety is largely fueled by adults projecting their fears onto children. Instead of empowering kids with facts and resilience, we’re inundating them with doomsday scenarios that they have no power to address.
This isn’t the first time media outlets have tried to pin children’s health issues on climate change.
Articles blaming climate change for everything from asthma to allergies have become commonplace, yet they often rely on dubious or cherry-picked data.
For example, in a 2022 Climate Realism piece titled “No, Climate Change Is Not Responsible for Poor Mental Health in Children,” Climate Realism addressed similar claims about eco-anxiety.
To claim that climate change is a major factor harming children’s health is to overlook far more pressing and actionable issues.
The article pointed out that weather-related events have always been a part of life, yet children in previous generations did not experience this level of anxiety.
Why? Because they weren’t bombarded with apocalyptic narratives every time a storm rolled in. The real issue isn’t the climate; it’s the messaging.
Another Climate Realism article, “Fact-Checking Claims That Climate Change Threatens Children’s Health”, dismantled the idea that asthma rates are rising due to climate change.
The article highlighted that while air quality has improved in most developed countries, the rise in asthma diagnoses is likely due to other factors, such as better medical awareness and diagnostic practices.
To claim that climate change is a major factor harming children’s health is to overlook far more pressing and actionable issues. Childhood obesity and screen addiction are immediate crises that we can and should address through education, policy, and behavioral change.
Meanwhile, the constant drumbeat of fear about climate change is arguably doing more harm to children’s mental health than the climate itself.
If we genuinely care about the well-being of future generations, we should focus on real, measurable challenges rather than these speculative and politically charged climate narratives.
KXAN-TV should be ashamed that they fell for this climate rhetoric distributed by the climate activist group Climate Central instead of examining the real-world issues that affect children.
Top photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
Read more at Climate Realism
