Rising Diagnoses Signal Mental Illness Epidemic
False Assumption: Sharp increases in mental health diagnoses among children reflect a genuine surge in the prevalence of mental disorders.
Written by FARAgent on February 09, 2026
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, mental health diagnoses among American children began climbing at astonishing rates, with elites in medicine, education, and media interpreting the numbers as evidence of a burgeoning crisis. By the 1980s, autism affected one in 2,500 kids; today it's one in 31. ADHD diagnoses jumped by a million from 2016 to 2022, anxiety hits 32 percent of adolescents with onset at age six. The New York Times spotlighted schools as culprits, but the deeper elite consensus pinned it on real pathology exploding in unnatural modern environments, prompting waves of interventions from meds to therapy.
Consequences cascaded predictably: schools chased funding by tagging kids for accommodations, parents jostled for edges in a zero-sum diagnostic arms race, clinicians billed for broader 'disorders,' and students embraced labels for perks like extra test time. Medications flowed, side effects mounted, and 'neurotypical' became an insult, all while evolutionary mismatches like screen time got partial blame but elastic DSM criteria quietly ballooned categories like Asperger's to capture milder traits. Good intentions fueled the frenzy, yet it rewarded overdiagnosis without brakes, as no blood tests or X-rays could falsify claims on the brain's black box.
Today, dissent brews with critics like Allen Frances, DSM-IV chair, admitting expansions were well-meant but led to overuse, and thinkers like Jonathan Haidt decrying phone-based childhoods. Mounting questions swirl around perverse incentives and social contagion, yet mainstream voices still largely treat the rise as authentic epidemic, contested by growing evidence of criterion creep and reward structures rather than mass affliction.
People Involved
- In the 1990s, Allen Frances chaired the DSM-IV task force. He approved adding milder forms of Asperger's syndrome to the manual. The goal was to help children with subtle symptoms get services. Later, he warned that such changes fueled overdiagnosis. Critics argue this shift inflated numbers without a real rise in disorders. [1] Parents joined in. They pushed for diagnoses to secure advantages for their kids. This included better resource allocation in schools. Mounting evidence challenges whether these actions reflected true surges in illness. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“My task force approved the inclusion of…Asperger’s syndrome, which is much milder in severity than classic autism and much more common. In doing so, we were responding to child psychiatrists’ and pediatricians’ concerns for children who did not meet the extremely stringent criteria for classic autism, but had similar symptoms in milder form and might benefit from services.”— School Daze
“The people clamoring loudest for a diagnosis of A.D.H.D. or autism are often parents.”— School Daze
Organizations Involved
Schools across the United States latched onto the idea in the early 2000s. They identified more children with ADHD or disabilities to tap into funding linked to test scores. This let them exclude low performers or medicate disruptive students. Classroom results improved, at least on paper. Growing questions surround whether this signaled a genuine epidemic or just clever accounting. [1] Clinicians played their part too. They favored billable treatments over free options like exercise. Expanded diagnoses meant more revenue. Critics argue this principal-agent mismatch propped up the assumption, even as evidence mounted against it. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“With school funding now on the line, there were unmistakable incentives for children to be diagnosed…Getting a child treated, potentially with medication, could help an entire classroom achieve higher scores, especially if the child’s behavior was disruptive to others. And in some parts of the country, children with disabilities were not counted toward a school’s overall marks, a carve-out that could boost scores.”— School Daze
“Mental health professionals are supposed to improve mental health, but they must also make a living. This discourages recommending low-cost, non-professional alternatives—exercise, friendship—and encourages identifying more ways to intervene.”— School Daze
The Foundation
The DSM expansions started in the 1990s. Adding Asperger's syndrome addressed clinicians' calls for help with milder cases. Categories broadened. Prevalence rates climbed without changes in the population. This spawned beliefs in a real surge of illness. Mounting evidence challenges that view, suggesting the expansions misled. [1] Mental illnesses lacked biomarkers. Diagnoses relied on subjective reports. Assertions became hard to falsify. Downstream, this supported ideas that reports alone confirmed disorders like ADHD or autism. Critics point to this as a flaw in the foundation. [1] Goodhart's Law entered the discussion by 2010. It explained how schools turned diagnoses into targets. Metrics detached from true prevalence. The belief in surging illness persisted, though increasingly contested. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (3)
“A second explanation is that the boundaries of mental illness have widened. New diagnostic categories have materialized; old ones have been stretched. Conditions that once described severe impairment increasingly encompass milder, more ambiguous forms of distress or difference, ushering more and more people under their expanding umbrellas.”— School Daze
“Diabetes is confirmed by elevated blood glucose. A broken bone is confirmed by an X-ray. But because the brain is the most complicated thing humans have ever encountered, no such tests or biomarkers exist for most mental illnesses. This means that almost anything can be asserted without fear of falsification.”— School Daze
“School-level incentives reflect Goodhart’s Law, which states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”— School Daze
How It Spread
Media outlets amplified the story from the 2000s onward. The New York Times ran pieces framing rising diagnoses as signs of unwell children. Schools appeared as the problem. Calls grew for more interventions. This spread the assumption widely. Growing dissent argues it overlooked other factors. [1] Social contagion took hold too. Symptom narratives spread through peer imitation. They memified like fashion trends or the Werther effect in suicides. Diagnoses accelerated beyond mere incentives. Critics highlight this as a key propagator, challenging the epidemic narrative. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article titled America’s Children Are Unwell. Are Schools Part of the Problem? At its core is a question many people are asking: why have mental health diagnoses—especially among children—risen so rapidly?”— School Daze
“Social contagion/memification/copycat effects drive the spread of diagnoses. I see this as closely related to incentives, but importantly distinct. Think of fashion, the fact that suicides spike after being covered in the news (the so-called Werther effect).”— School Daze
Resulting Policies
U.S. school funding policies shifted in the 2000s. They tied money to test scores in various regions. This encouraged diagnosing disabilities. Schools could exclude low performers or offer accommodations. Overall marks rose. Mounting evidence suggests these policies drove diagnosis rates, not a true surge in disorders. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (1)
“Schools funded on test scores are incentivized to over-diagnose so students receive extra time, disruptive students are medicated, or low-performing students’ scores are excluded altogether.”— School Daze
Harm Caused
Overdiagnosis brought side effects. Children got unnecessary medications. Insomnia and other issues followed. Resources shifted from severe cases. Student identities formed around illness, rewarding it over normalcy. One million extra ADHD diagnoses appeared in six years. Critics argue this harmed many. [1] Perverse incentives created a public goods problem. Scarce mental health resources spread thin. Truly impaired children lost out as milder cases crowded in. Growing questions surround the long-term damage from assuming an epidemic. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“This can be as mundane as someone seeking help for everyday stress, acquiring a clinical anxiety diagnosis, and then taking medication that causes insomnia.”— School Daze
“Parent-level incentives resemble a public goods problem. Everyone would be better off with fewer diagnoses because it would allow scarce resources to flow to those who need them most, but individual parents are incentivized to advocate early and often.”— School Daze
Sources
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[1]
School Dazereputable_journalism