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| Parents beware; monitor what your child watches | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 8 2007, 08:14 AM (126 Views) | |
| Buckwheat | Jul 8 2007, 08:14 AM Post #1 |
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Parents beware: It's more important than ever to monitor what your child watches on television, especially between the ages of 12 and 14. Kids at these ages who watch TV shows with a high sexual content are more than twice as likely to have sex by the time they are 16 than those who don't watch such shows, according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And it's not just TV that's to blame. It's also sexually-charged movies, music and magazines that act as virtual peers along with television, telling kids it's OK to have sex because everyone else is doing it, reports Reuters. The study: More than 1,000 black and white teenagers from North Carolina's Durham, Orange and Granville counties were surveyed when they were between 12 and 14 years old and again two years later. All were asked about their use of four different kinds of media and their sexual behavior. In addition, the team analyzed the sexual content of 308 different television shows, movies, songs and magazines that were used regularly by the teens. The sexual content researchers found in these media ranged from sexual innuendo to nudity to depictions of sexual intercourse. Based on this analysis, the researchers calculated a measure of each teen's "sexual media diet." The results: White teens in the study who had a high sexual media diet when they were 12 to 14 years old were 2.2 times more likely as those with less exposure to sex in the media to have had sexual intercourse two years later. The relationship was not as strong for black teens as it was for whites. "Teens are defaulting to entertainment media for sexual information because they aren't getting this information in other places," study leader Dr. Jane D. Brown said in a news release announcing the study findings. "Unfortunately, the media aren't the best sex educators. The media tend to leave out the crucial three C's: commitment, contraception and consequences." What's a parent to do? Talk to your teenager about sex. Brown and her colleagues found that one of the strongest protective factors against early sexual behavior was clear parental communication about sex. White teens who reported that their parents did not approve of them having sex at this age were less likely to have engaged in precoital sexual behavior. Both black and white youth who reported their parents did not want them to have sex were less likely to have engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they were 16 years old than those who perceived less parental disapproval of teen sex. Brown said the media, schools, parents and pediatricians need to provide more accurate and timely sexual information to teens. "Otherwise, the media will continue to serve as a kind of sexual super peer that doesn't have the best interests of young people in mind," she said. The study findings were published in the journal Pediatrics. |
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3:33 AM Jul 11
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3:33 AM Jul 11