Quite frankly, this is a poor excuse. I don't draw sweeping conclusions about "physical health" issues because of cherry picked stats about extremely prevalent physical health issues.
"73% of adult Americans are overweight" doesn't make me downplay physical health across an entire spectrum of issues.
Another conclusion one might draw is "holy shit, this is a crisis!". And there is growing evidence to support this. Humans haven't evolved to deal with the realities of the current century. We're only just starting to understand the impact of modern technology and many other developments of the last decade.
If someone sees a crisis and concludes that this must be something to dismiss, that says more about that person than it does about the crisis.
> "Mental health" (without further qualifications) is closer to herpes than to cancer.
And yet, people still take herpes seriously. People don't just dismiss ailments that aren't cancer.
But there's a more fundamental issue with the entire line of thinking raised by this comment. A key point that many people miss is that mental health and physical health aren’t really two distinct categories at all. The two are deeply intertwined, and usually inseparable.
Who you go to see, or what actions you take when you start to have issues will change, but you also see a dermatologist for skin problems, a cardiologist for heart problems, etc.
