What makes us happy? For 15-year-old Ellie Wilson from London, going through the turbulent   period between childhood and adulthood is "a pain". However, she also enjoys happy times with friends, even though they have a lot of arguments. "The thing about me and my friends is that one minute we're up and then the next we're down; one minute I want to shout the house down, the next I feel so happy that I just want to hug everyone in the room at once," she said to British paper The Independent. Wilson's generation have all the latest fashions and electronic equipment. But owning them does not necessarily make them happier. New research shows that it is the simple things in life that please us most. Close friends, playing sport and a stable   home life are more important to a teenager's happiness than the wealth of their parents, according to a study published this month by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex in Britain. Researcher Gundi Knies found families' incomes  didn't necessarily play a part in happiness. But happy children tend to  have their own bedroom, a bike or other leisure equipment. Children who have friends over for tea once a fortnight   and those who go swimming once a month were also happier with their lives than those who do not. A sense of belonging clearly had an influence on how satisfied people were. Children with lots of friends reported higher levels of happiness than those without. Children who live with both their parents were happier than those living in single families and step family relationships. Diet plays an important role too. Children who have fewer than five portions   of fruit and vegetables a day or who eat fast food most days tend to be less happy. The study also finds that girls make up both the happiest and least happy groups of children. "Older girls are unhappier because they are going through puberty   and their parents become more protective. Girls also become very conscious   of the way they look and the way they are treated," Knies told UK newspaper The Observer. "In general boys don't face the same pressures." Why are girls unhappier than boys during puberty?
Because they are more likely to be under pressure. Because they receive more attention from their parents. Because they have less sense of belonging at that time. Because they experience bigger physical changes than boys.