Real Lives True Stories: Peer Interactions and Stress Among Middle School Girls

Adolescence is a critical transition between childhood and adulthood and a transformative time of emotional turmoil and tremendous maturation in peer relationships. Significant changes occur in every physiological system, and elevated stress levels can have significant and long-lasting physiological effects on future health outcomes. This doctoral research investigates how the daily social stress of peer interactions and navigating social hierarchies influence adolescents’ well-being. Conducted in rural Mississippi, my work used ethnographic qualitative, standardized psychological, and quantitative biological data to examine the social interactions of at-risk girls in middle school. Implementing a critical biocultural framework to understand the challenges and the social determinants of health that rural, low-income middle school girls encounter in everyday experiences, this research elucidates how life events and social stressors become embodied. The project outcomes show that girls’ experiences of adverse life events and the myriad of ways they cope with these experiences contribute to increased systolic blood pressure. During adolescence, elevated stress levels that increase blood pressure may persist into adulthood, increasing the risk of cardiovascular and chronic disease. Often overlooked, rural girls’ experiences and associated blood pressure increases are similar to those in urban areas. During adolescence, the social determinants of health become a tangible facet of the social hierarchies girls must navigate as they develop their identity within the larger social environment. The embodiment of these stressors during this developmental period points to this adolescence as an important time to address social determinants of health and provide girls with the tools to cope effectively.