Archive: Teens
Teen girls and risky sex
It's tempting to assume that teenage girls who have unprotected sex at an early age do so because they're hot to trot, in a hurry and ill-informed. But new research suggests things are much more complicated than that. Reporting in the November issue of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh researchers found...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | November 2, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (8)
Women Eat Daintily Around Men
Young women tend to choose lower-calorie meals when dining with males than when eating with other women, a new study shows. Reporting online in the journal Appetite, researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, observed students in university cafeterias. When women ate with men, they skimped on their food; the...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | August 10, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (18)
Cure For Childhood Insomnia?
Here's yet another reason to encourage your kids to put away the video games and get outside for some real physical activity: It will help them fall asleep more easily and sleep better, according to new research out today. In fact, every hour on the couch translates to about three...
By Rob Stein | July 23, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Paying Girls Not to Get Pregnant
With the recent rise in teen pregnancy, it's clear that efforts to get young people to either abstain from sex or use birth control are falling short. Any ideas as to how to fix the problem are welcome, so it's not surprising that a program that aims to get girls...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | June 29, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (24)
Why Are Teen Births Rising?
The recent increase in teen births appears to be primarily the result of a decrease in contraceptive use, especially condoms, according to new research out today. After declining for 14 years, the teen birth rate increased in 2006 and then again in 2007, causing alarm that one of the nation's...
By Rob Stein | June 18, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (35)
Teens, Adults Take Dim View of Kids with Acne
In commemoration of National Acne Awareness Month, this startling news: Teens with acne are perceived as losers, at least compared to their clear-skinned peers. (Courtesy of PR Newswire.com) In research funded by the acne-med-maker Galderma and sponsored by the American Acne & Rosacea Society, just over 1,000 adults and about...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | June 15, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
Going to School Sick
Yesterday's story about Stefanie Zaner, an 18-year-old Montgomery County high-school senior who's closing in on a school-career-long perfect attendance record, raised some compelling issues. First, let me say this: I applaud Zaner for her tenacity and dedication. And I especially appreciate that, according to the article, her achievement didn't depend...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | May 27, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (11)
Learning to Love the Female Condom
When it comes to creating condoms, the folks who make 'em for men have it easy. Male condoms are the essence of simplicity and require little in the way of engineering -- or imagination. By contrast, when the people at The Female Health Company in Chicago set out to make...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | May 18, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Plus-Size Clothes, continued...
If it were up to readers of The Checkup, stores would offer plenty of flattering clothes in larger sizes so plus-size teens could step out in style. The poll in last week's blog had 93 percent of 1,175 voters weighing in in favor of making such clothing available for young...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | May 11, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (30)
Do Plus-Size Clothes for Teens Endorse Obesity?
The news that Target and Forever 21 are launching lines of plus-size clothes for teens has ruffled some emotions. Some argue that providing Size 30 or 2XL clothing for young women is akin to telling them it's fine to be fat. Others say young women of all sizes and shapes...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | May 4, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (19)
Does Facebook Lead to Bad Grades?
Spending too much time on Facebook may help a college student's social life but it may not be so great for their grades, according to a new study presented today. Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University surveyed 219 Ohio State students in 2008, including 102 undergraduates and 117 graduate students....
By Rob Stein | April 16, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Should You Circumcise Your Son?
There's new evidence out today that men who are circumcised are less likely to get infected with sexually transmitted viruses. Previous research had found that men who were circumcised were 50 percent to 60 percent less likely to get infected with the AIDS virus. Now, researchers have found that circumcision...
By Rob Stein | March 26, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (86)
Barbie, Mom and Body Image
In Barbie's 50 years as the doll America loves to hate, there's been lots of hand-wringing over the fashion icon's role in shaping girls' self-image. Do those big breasts, wasp waist and mile-long legs make us gals feel so inadequate that we fall into punishing dietary habits and other self-destructive...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | March 3, 2009; 07:20 AM ET | Comments (12)
Is Gardasil Safe?
Fretting about whether to get your daughter vaccinated against cervical cancer? Or perhaps about getting Gardasil yourself? The federal government has new data that officials say should help calm fears about the safety of the controversial shots. The analysis of data collected from about 190,000 women and girls who got...
By Rob Stein | October 23, 2008; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (9)
Are 'Energy' Drinks Threatening Our Kids?
Researchers are calling for warning labels and other steps to curb the abuse of those wildly popular high-caffeine "energy drinks." Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University and 98 other experts sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration this week saying they had become increasingly alarmed about Red Bull...
By Rob Stein | October 9, 2008; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
Why Teens Don't Use Condoms
Consider the condom. That little bit of latex has the power to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDS) and to prevent transmission of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer. (We wouldn't be debating giving our daughters the Gardasil vaccine if we could...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | September 12, 2008; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (25)
Teens Put a Price on Zit-Free Life
What would the average teenager pay to be zit-free for life? $275. That's what a study in the August issue of the Archives of Dermatology reports. Researchers at the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco asked 266 acne-ridden teens (ages 14-18) what they would pay to...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | August 20, 2008; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (16)
Is Facebook a Healthy Choice for Teens?
Let me be clear: I trust my 14-year-old daughter, and she's never given me reason not to. (We often have joked that her worst transgression so far was when she snuck off and cut her own hair at age 5.) But trust in her isn't really the issue in our...
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | July 15, 2008; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (36)
