A is for anorexia, B is for bulimia, C is for clinical anxiety, D is for depression, E is for exam stress, F is for fatigue… and so on. You could complete every letter in the alphabet with a problem specifically caused by exam pressure in this week when we are in the middle of exam results, A levels last Thursday and GCSEs this Thursday.

Statistics from A level results show that women are outnumbering men in gaining university places – 60,000 more women than men. For the first time, women have overtaken men in university entrance, and women are becoming the majority in professions such as law and medicine.

This all sounds very good for girls and women – but is it a hollow victory? At what price does this academic success come?

Exams have always been stressful, of course. They are intended to show how candidates perform under pressure. But from the age of 14, when the two-year GCSE course begins, students are put under more and more pressure to perform at the highest level in more ways and new ways.

Training children to pass exams is not the same as educating them and what many in education are saying quietly is that the pressure to perform in GCSEs and A levels is coming at an ever more visible cost to our children.

Some of the most graphic evidence is the dramatic rise in self-harm, particularly in girls. A cruel irony for girls is that while they are respected for their brains, they are also expected to achieve even greater beauty and slenderness. But according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents – and the mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females aged 15-24. So that’s a double whammy for girls: high expectations = high anxiety.

This isn’t also to say that boys aren’t suffering – they are. There’s been a rise in self-harm and muscle dysmorphia among boys but but we know a lot less about it because it’s too new a phenomenon.

NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) quotes this: in 2014, figures were published suggesting a 70 per cent increase in 10-14 year olds attending A&E for self-harm related reasons over the preceding two years. It says: “Girls are thought to be more likely to self-harm than boys,” adding the caveat that this could be because less is known about self-harm by boys.

As we approach the beginning of the new academic year, medical authorities are holding conferences to attempt to tackle mental health problems, including depression, in children and adolescents: just to give a couple of examples – Maudsley Learning will hold a Mental Health of Children and Young People conference to discuss, among other things, “children and young people’s mental health crisis”, and there is also the West Sussex GP conference on Children and Young People’s Wellbeing and Mental Health.

Why are they necessary? Well, teenagers are facing the heightened pressure of exams from a far more weakened position than earlier generations. Many have to cope with family breakdown, bullying, pressure from social media and so on, while they are also acutely aware that they are having to perform well predominantly for their school’s benefit, for its place in the league tables.

Our teenage daughter is one of thousands of teenagers collecting those all-important results on Thursday. I wonder what it will be like for our older son, who next month will be starting his GCSE course. Coursework is being removed from most GCSEs and there will be a tougher grading system. It could change again by the time our younger son starts his GCSE course in another two years. All we can hope is that somewhere along the line, someone in charge will take teenagers and their wellbeing into consideration.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are threatening legal action following paparazzi harassment of Prince George for foreign publications.

Good for them. He is two years old and the law affords him the right to privacy, just like any other toddler. Yes, he is not just any other toddler because he is an heir to the throne and is a member of an elite family, but for a photographer to set up a car near a play area, with darkened windows hung with curtains, and a long lens camera poking through a hole in the boot, is enough to make any parent want to withdraw their children from the public gaze.

Royal detractors will say Prince George lives a privileged life and therefore public scrutiny is the price he has to pay for it. But neither Prince George nor his baby sister Charlotte asked to be born into the royal family and it is the duty of all adults to protect children, no matter what their circumstances are, privileged or not.

His parents make sure that the press have plenty of chances to photograph George at arranged times, and it’s totally understandable for Prince William particularly, given the circumstances of his mother’s death, to want to shield his vulnerable young children from unscrupulous chancers out to make a quick buck.