Poor self-estem can cause death

So many behaviors whose end result is death and an investigation by the Coroner’s Office are rooted in poor self-esteem. Drug use and abuse is often self-medicating self-esteem. Violence, specific or indiscriminant, is often traced to poor self-worth or bullying on someone exhibiting poor self-worth. Other self destructive behaviors grow out of poor self-esteem and do cut lives short.

Because poor self-esteem is so ubiquitous, so multi-faceted, so legion in how it presents itself in a given individual, it is a difficult problem to counter, but it is necessary to act against it to improve the health of the community and stop so many preventable deaths (particularly in young people).

This is something I have been thinking about recently for a variety of reasons, including the suicide prevention we are working on, but it also popped up in a recent Eric Zorn (columnist, Chicago Tribune) blog post. He highlighted a new ad campaign and social campaign (including website) from the maker of Dove products. Yes, they are trying to sell product but their website discussing how serious a problem low self-esteem is among girls is definitely worth recommending to everyone, young and old, with or without obvious difficulty with self-esteem.

Another preventable cause of death that we can impact, no matter how difficult.