{"id":64659,"date":"2025-10-08T03:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/64659\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T03:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:54:07","slug":"crash-out-culture-and-the-new-meaning-of-health-for-young-new-zealanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/64659\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Crash out\u2019 culture and the new meaning of health for young New\u202fZealanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

So does \u201ccrashing out\u201d speak to a cultural current impacting New Zealand\u2019s young people? Or is it just a linguistic trend? Susanna Trnka, a professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland, said it\u2019s both.<\/p>\n

\"SusannaSusanna Trnka is a researcher and professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe phrase alerts us to the kinds of issues that are key for young people today, mainly how structural issues like unemployment, racism, and homophobia… are negatively impacting on young people\u2019s life experiences and therefore on their mental wellbeing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supported by the Royal Society, Trnka interviewed 235 New Zealanders aged 14\u201324 about health and recorded her findings in her newly released book, Healthization: Turning Life into Health. What it revealed was \u201cgenerationally distinctive\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said the young people she interviewed spoke of the societal need to be open about mental health<\/a>, and viewed themselves as \u201cthe generation that\u2019s attempting to break down taboos about openly talking about mental health challenges\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trnka said it was worth noting that \u201ccrashing out\u201d is occurring within the context of the \u201cattention economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttention is an increasingly scarce resource,\u201d said Trnka. \u201cGiven the dynamics of social media<\/a>, which provides so many competing avenues to capture our attention, our attention is increasingly valuable. Simply put, attention is money.”<\/p>\n

Trnka said that helps understand why a crash-out looks intense, and why others think it is performative and attention-seeking.<\/p>\n

Trnka said this is a Catch-22: \u201cYoung people promote speaking out about mental health challenges, but they are also very critical of anyone they think might be using them to seek attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crashing out is also used linguistically with validation, as was the case with the most-liked comment on Jeacoma\u2019s viral TikTok. One person declares they are going to crash out, while the other may disapprove, saying, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not a valid crash out,\u201d Trnka explained.<\/p>\n

Through talking to young people about health, Trnka said she never imagined things like looking good, putting on makeup and using a self-tracker to make sure you meet a friend for coffee at least once a week were all part of what could be considered \u201chealth\u201d. <\/p>\n

But being healthy isn\u2019t what it used to be, she noted. \u201cI\u2019m not saying they were unimportant, but whether I had a boyfriend or whether I had a peer group wasn\u2019t part of health a generation ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the first chapter of Healthization, Trnka wrote: \u201cThe sheer number of activities that youth describe as elements of their health is immense, covering a wide range of human experiences – from videogaming to \u2018numb\u2019 their emotions, or scheduling a set number of hours weekly to spend with their friends, to running until they feel intense pain, or wearing lipstick to spread a good vibe – all examples that arose in our interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

What surprised Trnka was how much young people cared that other people, like their peers or family, also put in the effort to take care of their health.<\/a><\/p>\n

For instance, Trnka recalled one woman she interviewed who lived in a dormitory: \u201cShe said, \u2018whenever I go for a run, I try and get people to come with me because they\u2019re the people I care about and it\u2019s important for them too. Some people just need a bit of a push, and I\u2019m the one who\u2019ll give them a push\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research also found young people attached a sense of morality to health. \u201cFor many of them, health isn\u2019t about being a patient in the medical system; it is a moral approach to how one lives their life,\u201d Trnka wrote in the book. <\/p>\n

But can that also be detrimental to their mental health? Trnka thinks so. Some young people she interviewed talked about \u201ca real sense of moral failure\u201d if they couldn\u2019t fit their intended health routines in a day.<\/p>\n

So what will health mean to New Zealand\u2019s youth 10 years from now?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be surprised if 10 years from now, people still weren\u2019t talking about health as … the primary thing that they\u2019re aiming for, but I\u2019ll see,\u201d said Trnka. \u201cI\u2019m more than happy to be surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers culture, travel and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So does \u201ccrashing out\u201d speak to a cultural current impacting New Zealand\u2019s young people? Or is it just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1443,95,43755,20188,51,138,14229,3549,2396,2082,71,134,5110,40839,17768,117,111,43147,139,69,1118,3111,384,16413,52468,301,223,52469,1528,43754,6923,4741,80],"class_list":["post-64659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-about","tag-and","tag-anjali","tag-anthropology","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-changing","tag-crash","tag-culture","tag-for","tag-from","tag-health","tag-healthy","tag-meaning","tag-means","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealanders","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-people","tag-professor","tag-susanna","tag-talks","tag-the","tag-trnka","tag-university","tag-varsha","tag-what","tag-young","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}