It's a sunny Friday afternoon, about three o'clock, but there's hardly anyone in Laugardalur Park in the center of Reykjavik. Occasionally you might see a mom with a stroller, but the park is surrounded by apartment buildings, and it's vacation time — so where are all the kids?
BB team members walk with Gudberg Konrad Jonsson, an Icelandic psychologist, and Harvey Milkman, an American psychology professor who teaches at the University of Reykjavik.
Twenty years ago, Gudberg says, Icelandic teenagers were among the most drunk and drug-addicted young people in Europe.
«On Friday evening it was impossible to walk down the street in the center of Reykjavík because it was unsafe. There were a lot of teenagers everywhere who were defiantly drunk and aggressive» — Milkman says.
We walk up to a large building. «And this is where we have the indoor skating rink» — Goodberg says. A couple of minutes ago we passed two more buildings — for badminton and ping-pong. Here in the park, there's a running track, a pool with thermal water, and a few kids excitedly playing soccer on an artificial field.
The kids aren't in the park now, Goodberg explains, because they're in these buildings — playing sports — or in clubs — practicing music, dance and art. Or have gone out of town with their parents.
Today, Iceland tops the list of European countries where teenagers lead the healthiest lifestyles.
The percentage of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who have gotten drunk in the past month has dropped from 42% in 1998 to 2% in 2022.
The percentage of those who have ever tried cannabis fell from 17% to 7%. Those who smoke cigarettes on a daily basis became only 3% instead of 23%.
The kids aren't in the park now, Goodberg explains, because they're in these buildings — playing sports — or in clubs — practicing music, dance and art. Or have gone out of town with their parents.
Today, Iceland tops the list of European countries where teenagers lead the healthiest lifestyles.
The percentage of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who have gotten drunk in the past month has dropped from 42% in 1998 to 2% in 2022.
The percentage of those who have ever tried cannabis fell from 17% to 7%. Those who smoke cigarettes on a daily basis became only 3% instead of 23%.
The way in which the country achieved this coup was both radical and scientifically sound. In many ways, that method relied on what might be called «enhanced common sense».
«This is the most evocative and insightful study of stress in the lives of adolescents that I've seen in my life, I'm just blown away by how beautifully it's turned out» — says Milkman.
If the Icelandic model were adopted in other countries, Milkman believes, it could benefit the psychological and physical health of millions of children, not to mention the budgets of health institutions and society as a whole.
«I found myself in the eye of the storm of the drug revolution» — Milkman explains over tea in his apartment in Reykjavik. In the early seventies, when he interned at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in New York, LSD already existed, many people smoked marijuana, and the question of why people took certain drugs was of great interest.
In his dissertation, Milkman concluded that people choose heroin or amphetamine depending on how they prefer to deal with stress: heroin users want to stun themselves, while those who use amphetamine meet stress face to face.
Following the publication of this work, Milkman was among the scientists selected by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to answer the following questions:
Following the publication of this work, Milkman was among the scientists selected by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to answer the following questions:
- Why do people start using drugs?
- Why do they continue to do so?
- When do they reach a threshold of abuse?
- When do they quit and why do they relapse?
At Capital State University in Denver, Milkman worked extensively on the idea that people develop an addiction to changes in brain chemistry.
Teenagers who preferred to meet stress face-to-face sought intense excitement — and got it by stealing tires, turntables and then cars, or by using stimulant substances.
Of course, alcohol also changes brain chemistry: it's a soporific and sedative, and at first it puts you to sleep with a sense of control, and that can get rid of complexes and reduce anxiety to some extent.
«People can be addicted to alcohol, cars, money, sex, calories, cocaine - anything» — Milkman says, — «Our calling card was the idea of behavioral addiction».
Teenagers who preferred to meet stress face-to-face sought intense excitement — and got it by stealing tires, turntables and then cars, or by using stimulant substances.
Of course, alcohol also changes brain chemistry: it's a soporific and sedative, and at first it puts you to sleep with a sense of control, and that can get rid of complexes and reduce anxiety to some extent.
«People can be addicted to alcohol, cars, money, sex, calories, cocaine - anything» — Milkman says, — «Our calling card was the idea of behavioral addiction».
By 1992, Milkman's team had won a $1.2 million government grant for the Self-Discovery Project, which offered teens alternatives to drugs and crime, alternatives that could give them a sense of getting high naturally.
Researchers received positive feedback from teachers, school nurses, and psychologists and recruited adolescents over the age of fourteen who did not feel they needed treatment but had problems with drugs or minor offenses as participants in the project.
«We proceeded from the premise that anti-drug propaganda doesn't work because no one pays attention to it. You have to learn to live with this information» — Milkman says.
In 1991, Milkman was invited to Iceland to speak about this work and his discoveries and ideas. He became a consultant for Iceland's first adolescent drug treatment center in Tindar.
Milkman began coming to Iceland regularly to give lectures. These lectures caught the attention of a young researcher at the University of Iceland named Inga Dora Sigfusdottir. She wondered if healthy alternatives to drugs and alcohol could be used as part of an alcohol and drug prevention program.
The results were alarming. Nationwide, nearly 25 percent of survey participants smoked cannabis daily, and more than 40 percent had been drunk in the past month. When the researchers analyzed the data more closely, they were able to pinpoint the most and least problematic schools. The analysis revealed clear differences between the lives of those teenagers who started drinking, smoking and taking drugs and those who did not.
Several factors have proven to be strong protectors for children: participation in organized activities, especially sports, three to four times a week; total time spent with parents during the week; feeling like someone at school cares about you; getting home before dark.
The mayor of the capital became interested in this project and after some time the laws were changed. The sale of tobacco to people under 18 and alcohol to people under 20 became illegal, and advertising was banned.
Links between parents and schools were strengthened through the creation of parent organizations, which by law had to exist in every school, as well as school councils with parental involvement.
Parents were encouraged to attend lectures where they were told that it was more important to simply spend more time with their children than to give them their full attention occasionally; that it was worth talking to children about their lives, finding out who they were friends with, and keeping them at home in the evenings.
Several factors have proven to be strong protectors for children: participation in organized activities, especially sports, three to four times a week; total time spent with parents during the week; feeling like someone at school cares about you; getting home before dark.
The mayor of the capital became interested in this project and after some time the laws were changed. The sale of tobacco to people under 18 and alcohol to people under 20 became illegal, and advertising was banned.
Links between parents and schools were strengthened through the creation of parent organizations, which by law had to exist in every school, as well as school councils with parental involvement.
Parents were encouraged to attend lectures where they were told that it was more important to simply spend more time with their children than to give them their full attention occasionally; that it was worth talking to children about their lives, finding out who they were friends with, and keeping them at home in the evenings.
In addition, a law was passed prohibiting children between the ages of 13 and 16 from being outdoors after 10 p.m. in the winter and after midnight in the summer. It is still in force.
Children from poor families have started to receive monetary assistance for participation in clubs. For example, in Reykjavik, where more than a third of the country's population lives, a «recreation card» provides families with 35,000 kroner a year per child to pay for extracurricular activities.
And, importantly, the surveys continue to be conducted. Once a year, almost every child in Iceland fills in such a questionnaire. This means that up-to-date and reliable data is always available.
In Europe, levels of alcohol and drug use among adolescents have generally declined over the past twenty years, although nowhere has the change been as drastic as in Iceland.
However, these improvements are not always linked to interventions aimed at the well-being of adolescents. In the UK, for example, adolescents are spending more time at home socializing online rather than in person; this may be one of the main reasons for the decline in alcohol and drug use.
But the Lithuanian city of Kaunas is an example of what can happen with active intervention. Since 2006, the city has conducted five large-scale surveys, and schools, parents, health organizations, churches, police and social services have come together in an effort to improve adolescent health and curb drug use.
Parents, for example, attend eight or nine free parenting skills classes each year, and community institutions that promote mindfulness and stress management are receiving additional funding under the new program.
In 2015, the city launched free sports classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; there is also a plan to create a free transportation service for non-wealthy families so that children who live far from sports clubs can attend these classes.
After our walk through Laugardalur Park, Gudberg Jonsson invites us to his home. In the garden, his two eldest sons — Jon Konrad, who is 21, and fifteen-year-old Birgir Isar — talk to me about alcohol and smoking.
Jon doesn't give up alcohol, but Birgir says he doesn't know anyone at his school who drinks or smokes. We also discuss soccer practice: Birgir practices five or six times a week, while Jon, who is in his first year at the University of Iceland, practices five times.
Both of them started practicing regularly at the age of six.
«We have a house full of musical instruments. We tried to get them interested in music. We used to have a horse. My wife really likes to ride. But that didn't work out. In the end they chose soccer» — their father told me.
Wasn't there a lot of practicing? Did someone make them go play when they would rather be doing something else instead of practicing? «No, we just enjoyed playing soccer» — Birgir says.
It's not all of their activities. Gudberg and his wife, Thorunn, may not have a specific plan to spend a strictly defined number of hours a week with their three sons, but they try to take them regularly to movies, theaters, restaurants, hiking, fishing - and when the Icelandic sheep are moved from the high mountain pastures in September, they even go grazing as a family.
Jon and Birgir may simply love soccer and are very talented (Jon was offered a soccer scholarship to Metropolitan State University in Denver, and Birgir was selected for the national junior varsity team a few weeks after we met). But could the marked increase in the number of kids who attend sports four or more times a week have other benefits besides making kids grow up healthier?
Does the crushing defeat that Iceland inflicted on England at Euro 2016, for example, have anything to do with it? Hearing this question, Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, who won the 2016 Icelandic Woman of the Year award, smiles and says: «There are also successes in music, for example Of Monsters and Men is an indie folk-pop band from Reykjavík. These are young people who have been pushed to work systematically. Some have thanked me» — she says and winks.
In other cities that have joined the Youth in Europe program, other positive effects have been noted.
In Bucharest, the rate of teenage suicides is decreasing, as is the rate of alcohol and drug use. In Kaunas, the number of adolescent offenders has fallen by a third by 2023.
Inga Dora summarizes: «We have learned from research that we need to create an environment where children can lead a healthy life — and then they don't need to use substances, because life is fun and interesting as it is».
Does the crushing defeat that Iceland inflicted on England at Euro 2016, for example, have anything to do with it? Hearing this question, Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, who won the 2016 Icelandic Woman of the Year award, smiles and says: «There are also successes in music, for example Of Monsters and Men is an indie folk-pop band from Reykjavík. These are young people who have been pushed to work systematically. Some have thanked me» — she says and winks.
In other cities that have joined the Youth in Europe program, other positive effects have been noted.
In Bucharest, the rate of teenage suicides is decreasing, as is the rate of alcohol and drug use. In Kaunas, the number of adolescent offenders has fallen by a third by 2023.
Inga Dora summarizes: «We have learned from research that we need to create an environment where children can lead a healthy life — and then they don't need to use substances, because life is fun and interesting as it is».
