How Can You Assess What You Can't Admit?

Teenagers who have moderate or severe period pain are much more likely to develop chronic pain as adults, according to research.

Shouldn't that be 'teenage girls'? They are, after all. the ones who menstuate.

Researchers said the findings should serve as a wake-up call to improve menstrual education, reduce stigma, and ensure young people have access to effective support and treatment early on.

Ensure 'young girls' have access, you mean? 

Academics at the University of Oxford analysed data from more than 1,100 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and found that, compared with those who did not have painful menses, those with severe period pain (dysmenorrhoea) at 15 years old had a 76% higher risk of chronic pain by the age of 26, while those with moderate period pain were 65% more likely to have chronic pain as adults. While previous research has focused on pelvic pain, the authors say this study, funded by the Medical Research Foundation and published in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, is the first to reveal a link between adolescent period pain and chronic pain in other parts of the body.

They really are going out of their way to avoid saying which sex they are talking about, aren't they? 

While anxiety and depression could play a role in the development of chronic pain as an adult, the study found this was only a minor factor. The researchers believe that greater “neuroplasticity” during adolescence could make teenage brains more sensitive to repeated pain signals, which could change how they process pain in the brain.

What changed how scientists and journalists process reality in their brain, that they can write an article that avoids clarity until almost half way down the page? Surely that's the bigger question?

Yes, It's A Mental Illness...

 ...and it often goes hand in hand with other expressions of mental illness:

A murder-obsessed teenager who spoke of carrying out a mass shooting at an Edinburgh school has been jailed for six years. A court heard Felix Winter, who is now 18, "idolised" the killers behind the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US. The pupil repeatedly spoke about mounting a similar "Doomsday" attack to the one which claimed the lives of 12 students and a teacher in Colorado. Winter, who also held racist and pro-Nazi views, admitted two charges at a hearing in February.

But no matter what someone’s been found guilty of, there are always those eager to assist them to escape punishment. 

Shelagh McCall KC, defending, called for a strict alternative to custody as her client was a "vulnerable young person" with mental health issues.

Indeed so, more so than this article wishes you to realise: 

Police Scotland launched an investigation in the summer of 2023 after a social media photo of Winter at school wearing combat gear and carrying an imitation gun caused panic among pupils and parents. It emerged the clothes and prop gun were issued to him for a video being made in a drama class in which he had been cast as a kidnapper. But detectives established Winter, of Kirknewton, West Lothian, frequently spoke to other pupils about carrying out a school attack.

Officers discovered that the schoolboy had a TikTok account which had footage of him wearing black combat clothes as well as a skeleton mask.

Despite the name and the pronouns used by the BBC, this is a girl. 

At a previous hearing, Winter's lawyer said that the teenager was vulnerable and a transgender person and that would need to be taken into account.

Quite why, when it’s merely another facet of her extreme mental illness, God only knows!