Every 2 years, the CDC releases the findings from its national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The survey’s purpose? Gauge how U.S. high school students are doing across five dimensions: dietary behaviors, physical activity, mental health, digital behaviors, and sleep.
The survey’s latest edition, with the data from 2025, is in. As always in life, there’s some good and some bad to the big picture. The good: fewer students reported poor mental health (23% in 2025 vs. 29% in 2021). The bad: only about 1 in 4 high school students were physically active in 2025.
Overall, there is good news: some indicators seem to be improving compared to 2021–23. But one look at the 2015 data is enough to see that many problems remain as prevalent a decade later.
What Is the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey?
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) has been around for 35+ years, which makes it a source of valuable historical data for trend analysis. Each report compares the fresh survey data to responses to the same questions 2 and 10 years ago.
Every time, the CDC takes great care to create a nationally representative sample of high school students in grades 9 through 12 across 50 states and D.C. The sample design also accounts for the school they attend (public or private, including charter and parochial schools).
If there’s one thing to learn from the latest YRBS report, it’s that some issues seem to have taken a turn for the better compared to 2 years ago. However, that doesn’t mean that the 10-year trend is a positive one.
High School Student Health Statistics Show an Overall Improvement in Mental Health…
Let’s kick things off with some good news. Five key student mental health indicators tangibly improved between 2023 and 2025:
Note: even though the last indicator is lower in 2025 than it was in 2023, CDC doesn’t consider this change “statistically significant.”
While you can see that four of six 2025 indicators went down below their 2015 levels, the CDC analysis shows no linear trend for three of them when adjusted for grade, sex, and race and ethnicity. In other words, lower figures don’t mean that the needle moved.
In fact, only two 2015–25 trends have revealed themselves:
- The good: The share of students injured in a suicide attempt went down.
- The bad: The prevalence of persistent feelings of sadness or loneliness worsened.
…But Female Students Are Left Behind
The mental health snapshot looks starkly different once you compare data across gender lines. Female students are struggling with mental health more than their male peers, no matter the indicator:
This isn’t the only statistically significant difference in the 2025 dataset. For example, 9th graders were also found to be more likely to:
- Make a suicide plan than their 12th-grade peers
- Attempt suicide than their peers in the 11th and 12th grades
How Many Teens Do Not Get Enough Sleep?
Teenagers need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep a night, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Yet, only 24% of high schoolers actually got at least 8 hours of sleep in 2025, about as many as in 2023 (23%).
Compared to the 2015 figures, however, things got worse. Back then, 27% of high schoolers were getting enough sleep.
So, the bottom line is, students do not get enough sleep. But the 2025 dataset also reveals several trends in who’s getting less sleep than their peers:
- 31% of 9th graders slept at least 8 hours on an average school night, compared to their peers in the 10th (25%), 11th (20%), and 12th (20%) grades.
- Male students were somewhat more likely to get enough sleep than their female peers (26% vs 22%).
- American Indian or Alaska Native students were significantly more likely to get their 8 hours of sleep (49%) than White (25%), Black (21%), or Asian (18%) students.
Lack of quality sleep is a silent epidemic that deserves attention. In adolescents, in particular, not getting enough sleep can increase the risk of:
- Attention, behavior, and learning problems
- Accidents and injuries
- Hypertension
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Depression
- Suicidal thoughts and attempts
Physical Activity Statistics: Most High Schoolers Still Don’t Clear the Benchmarks
In 2025, only a quarter (25%) of high school students followed physical activity recommendations for their age group. Those recommendations mandate at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day.
What’s worse, the share of physically active students is trending down from its 2015 levels (27%). The long-running trend is similar for three other physical behaviors:
- Engaging in muscle-strengthening activities at least 3 times a week (51% in 2025 vs. 53% in 2015)
- Meeting both aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines (16% in 2025 vs. 20% in 2015)
- Attending PE daily (20% in 2025 vs. 30% in 2015)
That said, it’s not all doom and gloom, either: more students played on sports teams in 2025 (58%) than in 2023 (52%). This indicator returned to its 2015 levels after dipping to 49% in 2021.
Male students were more likely to engage in all five behaviors the CDC tracks to measure physical activity in high school students. Interestingly enough, students in rural high schools were also more likely than their urban counterparts to:
- Be physically active at least 60 minutes a day
- Strengthen muscles at least 3 times a week
- Meet both aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines
So, What’s Getting Better, & What’s Getting Worse?
Overall, the 2025 survey results show a number of positive changes compared to 2023 data, such as:
- More students eat fruit and vegetables every day.
- More students play on sports teams.
- Fewer students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness or poor mental health.
The only negative 2-year trend concerns PE classes: fewer students attended PE daily during an average school week in 2025 compared to 2023.
That said, many indicators didn’t show a meaningful change over the past 2 years. Those span everything from drinking soda daily and engaging in daily physical activity to getting enough sleep and using social media every hour.
If we zoom out and compare the latest data to the 2015 results, however, that puts the recent positive gains into perspective:
- Physical activity levels are worse across the board, save for sports team participation.
- Fewer students are getting enough sleep.
- More students report struggling with persistent sadness or hopelessness.
Student Health and Wellness: Key Takeaways for Schools & Families
Despite some good news, there’s still a lot of ground to cover to reverse the negative trends that have taken root over the past decade. Here’s what CDC recommends families and schools focus on to do that, across every dimension:
In Closing
The most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey offers a glimmer of hope, but the 10-year trends still leave much to be desired. If anything, the report only highlights that teenagers are still struggling with systemic issues like low physical activity levels and lack of sleep.
That said, this report isn’t an excuse to throw our hands in the air and consider high school student health a lost cause. It simply holds a mirror to the specific issues that warrant schools’ and families’ attention.
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