ABSTRACT
Powerful as arguments are about the detrimental effects of precarity on health, it remains important to establish this relationship empirically. It is also important to explore in some detail how the ill effects of living in precarity manifest themselves in young people’s lives. The purpose of this chapter is to bring together empirical evidence of young people’s health and wellbeing and to establish its relationship with precarity and its correlates, of poverty, multiple disadvantage, and socio-economic and environmental conditions. Mental health issues are prominent within the writing about precarity, where tensions and frustrations within families, schools, and communities are sources of anger and frustration, helplessness and hopelessness, anxiety and stress, and alienation. A broad-ranging overview of the evidence that connects precarity to health among young people is presented. Following this, three issues are considered relating to precarity and health that have been investigated by physical education researchers, social media and health-related information, body image and body dissatisfaction, and social vulnerability. The chapter reveals that there is a strong grounding in research for claims that living in precarity has a devastating effect on young people’s health and wellbeing.
