PeNSE
Loss of meaning in living hits twice more girls than boys
March 25, 2026 10h00 AM | Last Updated: March 25, 2026 03h49 PM
Highlights
- Proportionally, more than twice as many girls felt sadder, more irritated, nervous or moody than boys.
- One out of four teenage girls considers that ‘life is not worth living;’ more than twice as many as boys (12%).
- 43.4% of girls and 20.5% of boys felt like 'hurting themselves on purpose' in the 12 months prior to the survey.
- More than 40% of teenagers aged 13 to 17 years say they are not satisfied with their body image.
- The percentage of satisfaction with one's own image has fallen since 2015, when the rate was 70.2%.
Proportionally among students, more than twice as many girls felt sad, irritated, nervous or moody as boys. They are also the students who intentionally hurt themselves the most and who most feel that life is not worth living.
The data were collected by the National Survey of School Health (PeNSE), carried out in 2024, with students between 13 and 17 years old. In the study, aspects of mood swings were investigated with teenagers 30 days prior to the survey. Therefore, considering the indicator ‘life is not worth living,’ 18.5% of teenagers said they felt this way ‘most of the time’ or ‘always.’ In the analysis by sex, the percentage of girls (25.0%) who claimed a loss of meaning in living was approximately twice as high as that observed in boys (12.0%).
Sadness and desire to get hurt
The data goes further. In 2024, the total number of students who responded ‘most of the time’ or ‘always’ for the feeling of sadness, in the last 30 days, was 28.9%. When analyzing the feeling of sadness according to the sex of those surveyed, the percentage observed for girls was 41.0% and for boys, 16.7%, a difference of almost 25 p.p.
In the last survey, a new question was introduced to investigate the teenager´s willingness to 'hurt themselves on purpose' in the 12 months prior to the survey. The total who responded that they felt like hurting themselves on purpose was 32.0%; Among girls, this percentage was 43.4%, while among boys, it was 20.5%. Once again, it is notable that the percentage of girls wanting to hurt themselves was more than double that observed among boys.
On the other hand, the proportion of teenagers who responded that they felt ‘irritable, nervous or bad-tempered about anything’ was 42.9%. Among girls, the percentage of this indicator was 58.1%, again more than double that reported among boys (27.6%).
Researcher and psychologist, Danielle Monteiro highlights that Brazilian students had better overall results in mental health indicators than those obtained in the previous survey in 2019: “it draws attention that, despite the survey carried out in 2024 being temporally located in a post-COVID-19 pandemic world, four out of six indicators already existing in the edition of PeNSE in 2019 showed a drop in their overall results.”
However, the advance in the indexes does not mean that young Brazilians are in good mental health. “The indicators surveyed still showed negative results that were superior to many found in the literature in terms of evaluating feelings of anxiety and depression,” warns Monteiro.
Dissatisfaction with their own body
PeNSE also revealed that students aged 13 to 17 years are increasingly less satisfied with their bodies. Among those interviewed, 58.0% declared themselves to be ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with their own body image. Despite this, 27.2% said they were 'very dissatisfied' or 'dissatisfied' and 14.0% claimed 'indifference'.
And the satisfaction percentage drops with each survey. In 2019 it was 66.5%, compared to 70.2% recorded in the survey carried out in 2015. On the other hand, the total number of ‘very dissatisfied’ or ‘dissatisfied’ students increased. It was 19.1% in 2015 and rose to 22.2% in the 2019 survey.
The survey also pointed to a difference in these data according to the sex of the students. The total number of girls who said they were dissatisfied with their body image was 36.1% in the last survey, almost doubling the 18.2% of boys.
“This entire analysis points out that Brazil needs to invest in the mental health of teenagers, especially in the health of girls. The creation of public policies that take into account these differences between the sexes is important and urgent so that Brazilian women can maintain their well-being and their undeniable capacity to contribute to the economy, society and the Brazilian State,” concludes Monteiro.
