Australian children are increasingly writing about looking after their bodies, with the word ‘vitamin’ named Oxford’s Australian Children’s Word of the Year for 2025.
Oxford University Press (OUP) analysed more than 3.4 million words from over 46,700 stories submitted through its online Writing Legends program, finding a clear preoccupation with health and self-care across students’ writing. The dataset represents a 51 per cent increase in words and an 82 per cent increase in stories compared with 2024.
While ‘vitamin’ appeared more than 1,133 per cent more frequently than the previous year, researchers said the most striking finding was the consistent focus on managing health rather than simply mentioning it.
OUP’s shortlist reflected the trend, with words such as ‘exercise’, ‘diet’, ‘skin’, ‘muscle’ and ‘energy’ all featuring prominently. All but one of the shortlisted words recorded usage increases of more than 100 per cent compared with 2024.
Together, the results suggest children, particularly in the mid- to late-primary years, are absorbing messages about looking after themselves from school, family and the wider media environment, and incorporating those ideas into stories about daily life, identity, routines and aspirations.
Mr Lee Walker, Director of Publishing at Oxford University Press, said the findings show a shift in the themes children are choosing to write about.
“Children aren’t just writing about princesses, horses, dragons and adventures anymore. Across thousands of stories, we saw children write about health as something you need to increasingly consider to stay energised and grow strong, rather than as appearance-driven body talk. It’s a sign of how present health and wellness has become in our society,” he said.
The report also points to the strong commercial and cultural visibility of health and wellness, with those influences flowing into classroom and playground language. In some examples, children described skincare routines and sun protection in everyday detail, indicating how normalised these concepts have become in their storytelling.
Dr Amanda Laugesen, Director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre at the Australian National University, said children’s writing often reflects cultural shifts before adults notice them.
“Children’s writing is where big cultural conversations show up early, which is probably why we are seeing them echo familiar conversations about what practices to adopt to optimise health. Adults are constantly talking about needing more energy and wanting to feel better, so it’s no surprise children have picked these up,” she said.
The words collected through the program have been added to the Oxford Australian Children’s Language Corpus, which tracks the development of children’s language over time and informs the publisher’s research into linguistic trends.
Oxford’s Australian Children’s Word of the Year is one of the ways OUP engages with the ever-changing language of Australian children. Previous Children’s Word of the Year include: ‘friend’ (2024), ‘cost’ (2023), ‘privacy’ (2022), ‘power’ (2021), ‘virus’ (2020) and ‘bravery’ (2019).
