Magazines aimed at the male youth market may be partly responsible for the rising suicide rate among young men, according to a report published last month by the Men's Health Forum.

Psychologist Trefor Lloyd, a Forum executive, blamed the magazines for celebrating a "laddish" culture in a society where such behaviour is out-dated. "For the first time, next year women will make up 51% of the workforce. Men have had to cope with losing their role as the only breadwinners, rising unemployment and a lowering of expectations," commented Mr Lloyd. "They have got to adapt to the modern world, but these lads' magazines offer them false hope. The magazines are looking back to how men were 30 or 40 years ago ­ life just isn't like that anymore, and men need to adapt and come to terms with that."

Worth dying for?

According to the report, "Young Men and Suicide," three times as many young men as young women in the UK take their own lives. Despite a fall in suicide rates across the population as a whole between 1974 and 1990, the number of suicides in the 15 to 24 male age group more than doubled, and a 51% increase occurred in men between the ages of 25 and 34, the report states. In the four year period from 1982 to 1986, there was a reduction in female suicides by 41.3%, while the number of male suicides rose by 2.3%. The report also asserts that last year, 1500 men under the age of 34 committed suicide -- a greater number of deaths than those caused by road traffic accidents.

Dr Ian Banks, chairman of the Men's Health Forum, expressed concern over the report's findings. "The whole of society has more or less turned a blind eye to the number of suicides among young men. There is not the interest. If a disease came down to Earth and devoured this number of young men, there would be an outcry. Health authorities, schools and general practitioners all need to address the issue of suicide. GPs should have a high index of suspicion if young men come to see them, because they come so rarely."

The report concludes by recommending that suicide prevention strategies and health promotion should be implemented in a wider social framework, which includes schools, the voluntary sector (such as the Samaritans), probation, community organisations, and accident and emergency departments.

The report Young Men and Suicide is available on-line at http://www.menshealthforum.org.uk/suicide/