The CDC published a new report on teen health on September 21, 2026, called "Youth Health in Focus." It draws on the federal government's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which has tracked high schoolers for more than 35 years. The 2025 numbers show real improvement over 2023: persistent sadness or hopelessness fell from 40% to 33%, and the share of students who seriously considered suicide dropped from 20% to 14%. More students ate fruits and vegetables, drank water regularly, and played on a sports team than two years ago. The report covers five areas — diet, exercise, sleep, screen time, and mental health. It doesn't mention LGBTQ+ youth. It includes far less race and ethnicity breakdown than past reports. And it skips substance use, sexual violence, opioid use, and school-connectedness data — all things the same survey collects and past reports have featured.

1. CDC and HHS (Dr. Jennifer Shuford, Mike Underwood)

The numbers are real, and the focus on nutrition and mental health is deliberate.

Teens are genuinely doing better, and that's the story worth telling. Dr. Jennifer Shuford, CDC's Deputy Director and Chief Medical Officer, said the gains "show that progress is possible when schools, families, and communities work together to support young people."

CDC picked these trends on purpose. Shuford said the highlighted trends "align with the Make America Healthy Again initiative led by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy — who are committed to preventing chronic disease across our country, especially in our nation's youth."

CDC says the missing data isn't gone, just not headlined. Mike Underwood, acting director of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, said the report was meant "to provide a high-level snapshot" of youth health. He acknowledged "there are significant disparities when we look at behaviors among different groups of students," but said CDC still collects that data and posts it separately on the YRBS website.

2. Public health researchers and clinicians (Dr. Scott Hadland, Ariel Beccia, Dr. Vera Feuer)

The mental-health gains are real, but the report's framing hides which kids are still struggling.

CDC asked the same questions — it just showed different results. Dr. Scott Hadland, Chief of Adolescent Medicine at Mass General Brigham for Children and part of the team that helps administer the survey in Massachusetts, called the mental-health improvement "a cause for optimism." But he said the new report stands apart in what it chooses to show: "the extent to which we could observe health inequities by race and ethnicity and then by membership in the LGBTQIA+ community were really much more absent in this report."

A Harvard researcher says the good news might not reach everyone equally. Ariel Beccia, an instructor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, put it this way: "Overall, we see things are getting better, but for who?" She said the nutrition gains could be concentrated among more advantaged students, since the report skips context like how close kids live to a grocery store or whether their families can afford fresh food.

A child psychiatrist welcomes the trend but flags what's missing. Dr. Vera Feuer, Chief Clinical Officer at the Child Mind Institute, called the drop in suicidal thoughts "encouraging." She said thoughts of suicide had hit an all-time high during the pandemic and are now coming down. She also noted the report leaves out school-connectedness data, a factor researchers consider protective for teen mental health.

3. Data-transparency watchdogs (American Lung Association, state attorneys general)

The administration has narrowed federal youth-health data before, and this report fits that pattern.

CDC cut short a separate youth survey entirely last year. Officials pulled the 2025 National Youth Tobacco Survey — the survey that first exposed the teen vaping surge — from the field early. The American Lung Association's May 2025 report tied the cancellation to the elimination of CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

Attorneys general from both parties objected. A bipartisan group of 22 state attorneys general asked CDC to continue the youth tobacco survey after officials cut it short.

The administration has done this before. It previously stripped transgender-identity survey data from a CDC website; a federal judge ordered CDC to restore it.

Where This Lands

CDC stands by the report as an accurate, purposeful snapshot of real gains. The fuller dataset is still public for anyone who wants it. Clinicians and researchers close to the survey don't dispute the numbers. They dispute the framing. They say a report that leaves out LGBTQ+ kids, race and ethnicity gaps, and substance use tells only the part of the story that fits. Watchdogs point to a pattern. CDC canceled a tobacco survey. A court had to order it to restore transgender data. And now a mental-health report skips the categories that don't align with the administration's priorities.

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