Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
Key takeaways from the Washington Healthy Youth Survey
By Venice Buhain, story published 07/06/2026
Every two years the State of Washington's Healthy Youth Survey takes the temperature of the health and well-being of the state's middle and high school students.
Since 2002, students in public schools have been asked questions about topics such as bullying, safety, alcohol use, and support from parents and peers. The latest survey from 2025 was released earlier this year.
State agencies including the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Washington Health Care Authority, the Department of Health, and the Liquor and Cannabis Board conduct the Healthy Youth Survey every other year. The survey helps inform state and local policies and programs for schools, health care providers, and others.
In 2025, the results for 10th graders showed some positive signs. One out of four reported depressive feelings. Three out of ten reported general anxiety. Three out of four, or 75%, expressed strong feelings of hope.
"Youth are doing pretty well, especially in school," said Sarah Mariani, who manages the Washington State Health Care Authority's Substance Use Disorder Prevention and Mental Health Promotion section. "And so where we have made efforts to enhance supports in schools, it seems that some of those efforts may be contributing to the success of youth health and well-being.”
The data also reveal some notable trends over time. For instance, in 2025, about 7% of 10th graders reported drinking alcohol in the past month -- much lower than 28% in 2010 who said they had alcohol recently. Similarly, in 2010, 24% of 10th graders said they were bullied or harassed, compared to just 15% of 10th graders who reported the same in 2025.
But when the data are broken down into groups, that picture changes for some students. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender 10th graders reported being bullied at nearly twice the rates of their peers. Native students reported similar numbers.
A major takeaway is that support from adults remains important, Mariani said.
"It doesn't all have to happen just at the state structure or just in schools," she said. "Community is what helps develop the totality for our youth."
Healthy Youth Survey dashboard is available at http://askhys.net.
A look at dangerous weight control behaviors
By Paris Jackson, story published 07/07/2026
In 2023, the Healthy Youth Survey started asking questions about dangerous weight control behavior. The 2025 data showed some minor changes from the last survey, and showed students’ race and gender identity consistently made a difference in their experiences across the questions asked.
The survey has respondents self-identify their gender identity as either Male, Female, Transgender, Questioning or Something else.
One of the questions related to dangerous weight gain behaviors was: ‘During the past year, did you exercise to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight?’
In King County, about 58% of 10th grade females said they controlled their weight through exercise, compared to just 49% of males.
About 60% of American Indian and Alaskan Native 10th graders said they control their weight through exercise, compared to about 47% of white teens.
Meantime, 25% of 10th grade females said they used fasting to control weight, compared with 17% of males, and more females said they used diet to control their weight than males.
King County 10th graders were also asked: how often do family, friends and peers do or say things about your body or the food that you eat that make you feel bad?
71% of students who identified as transgender said they were made to feel bad. Meantime, 57% of those who identified as female said they’d experienced that, compared with only 38% percent of those who identified as male.
You can explore the data by following this link to the dashboard and selecting the “Dangerous Weight Control Behaviors” topic.
LGBTQ+ teens report less hope, more bullying
By Venice Buhain, story published 07/08/2026
In 2025, 15% of 10th graders in the survey statewide reported having been bullied in the last month – a significant decrease from 2010. However, that percentage was about twice as high among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.
And while just over half of 10th graders were called "highly hopeful” - based their answers to four questions - only 35% to 38% of gay, lesbian and bisexual students were classified as highly hopeful. For transgender 10th graders that number dropped to about a quarter.
Ken Shulman of Lambert House, which provides support groups and other resources for LGBTQ+ youth, previously spoke with The Newsfeed about the importance of community, family and peers in maintaining young people’s mental health.
“So the hope comes in relationships and hope for most of us in our lives whenever we need it and wherever we find it, or when we're desperate in some way typically comes from a relationship or multiple relationships,” Shulman said. “Somebody we can talk to, somebody we can confide in, somebody who will listen, somebody who will be nonjudgmental, somebody who's consistent, who stays there with us.”
Teen gambling on the rise in WA
By Lizz Giordano, story published 07/09/2026
The 2025 Healthy Youth Survey found one in eight 10th graders had gambled in the past 30 days: more than the number who said they'd used drugs or alcohol.
Many young people who are gambling think they are going to make money, according to Kim Freudenberg, the founder of Parents Standing Together, a nonprofit that raises awareness about the dangers of youth gambling.
“The entire gambling ecosystem is set up so that you lose money, but young people's brains aren't fully developed yet, they don't see that how that works, and they think they're going to make money from it,” Freudenberg said.
Freudenberg set up the group earlier this year to try to help other families. Her son started gambling in middle school and it continued through college.
“A gambling addiction is not about money, and a lot of people think it's.. it's a money problem, and it is not. It is a full-blown mental health crisis problem, and it just feeds off of money. Money is just the drug,” Freudenberg said.
According to the Washington Healthy Youth Survey, the percentage of tenth graders who self-reported that they have gambled in the last 30 days grew from 9% in 2021 to 12.7% in 2025.
“The number of young people that are getting pulled into all these various forms of gambling is really high, and parents don't know what to do, they don't see it, they don't recognize it…” Freudenberg said.
She says young people are making bets on sportsbooking sites and prediction markets, and using financial apps to trade stock like Robinhood.
“(Parents) don't know the warning signs, they don't know that you know their Robin Hood app might be gambling. They don't know about prediction markets. They don't understand the nature of today's sports betting,” Freudenberg said.
More information on Parents Standing Together can be found at https://parentsstandingtogether.org/.
As teens scroll, WA lawmakers weigh school phone restrictions
By Venice Buhain, story published 07/10/2026
About 75% of public schools in Washington state have implemented some limitations on cell phones. Gov. Bob Ferguson would like to see limitations at all of them.
“From the first bell to the last, students will not have access to their cell phones. In our schools, digital distractions are causing kids to miss what's written on the whiteboard. They're focusing more on memes than on math,” Ferguson said at a press conference in June. Ferguson called legislation to limit phones in schools a top priority in the next legislative session.
A push to limit cell phones in classrooms began several years ago, after state schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal urged school districts to adopt policies and procedures limiting their use. Principal Zachary Stowell of Robert Eagle Staff Middle School in Seattle said a change at that school brought positive changes to the learning and social environment.
“The classrooms are more vibrant, students are engaging, there's more social time. And at the end of the day, student success is up. Our climate data is up, our test scores are up, and I'm seeing kids smile at rates that we've never seen before,” Stowell said.
The Washington Healthy Youth Survey asked middle and high school students about social media in 2023 and 2025. In the latest survey, 37% of the state’s sixth graders said they use social media several times a day. That percentage ticked up in the upper grades, with 75% of 12th graders saying they use social media several times a day.
Another nationwide study published in 2024 used an app to track phone use. It showed that participating students spent an average of 1.5 hours on smart phones during the school day, and 25% of them spent more than two hours on the phone during school.
Dr. Lucía Magis-Weinberg, associate director of research for the Center for Digital Youth at the University of Washington, surveyed Washington schools to learn more about the impacts phone rules had on students and teachers.
She says one surprise was that around 20% of students reported more stress – some because they had come to rely on their phones for everything, like many adults do.
She said schools will have to help students adjust to life without phones, like students did in the pre-cell phone era.
“I knew that I had to bring pen and paper, that I had to bring my my school calendar, which was printed, where I could write down. I had to bring my watch. I had to very clearly coordinate with my parents before I went into the school building. Who was going to pick me up on what times?” Dr. Magis-Weinberg said.
She said the most successful schools in the study did more than just restrict phones.
“The schools that were most successful, perhaps were the ones who also very proactively organized social activities for youth. So some schools brought in like more board games or [cut] any type of school activity that leads to interaction,” Dr. Magis-Weinberg said.
The Center for Digital Youth also works with a small group of high school students called the Youth Advisory Board to help shape its research. Last year, the Youth Advisory Board issued a research memo on school phone policies, encouraging policymakers to make several considerations when making rules. Those included considering alternatives to all-day bans, considering individual medical and translation needs, and including input from students, parents and teachers.
One Robert Eagle Staff seventh grader told reporters at Gov. Ferguson’s press conference that those changes made a huge difference among students.
“They're not consistently worried about notifications, social media, or getting a text that can change their whole mood in seconds. During the day, we get a break from all of that and can focus on our learning friends and more,” the student named Zoey said.
Ferguson said a detailed proposal from his office is expected in September. If passed, a cell phone policy law would start in the 2027-28 school year.
