The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Youth dangerous behavior monitoring system (YRBSS) shows that America’s youth face increasing health risks every day.
According to the study, young people face a range of challenges, including mental health, aggression and unhealthy habits.
They also have different views on the definition of sex.
CDC publishes data to identify specific risk factors, develop interventions, and gain support from families and young people.
Across the country, data shows that teens are battling suicidal thoughts, bullying, dating violence, sexual assault, poor nutrition and lack of exercise.
For example, the percentage of children who spend more than two hours a day watching TV or playing video games has increased from 14.9% in 2013 to 55.5% in 2021.
In addition, 23.5% of adolescents got 8 hours or more of sleep on a regular school night, and only 21.7% got 60 minutes or more of physical activity each day.
The study also found a significant percentage of young people texting while driving, with 47% of young people doing this.
Regarding mental health and suicide, statistics show that 41.5% of young people have felt depressed or hopeless nearly every day for two weeks or longer, up from 33% in 2017.
Female, gay, lesbian, and bisexual students were more likely than male and heterosexual students to have suicidal thoughts.
The data show that fewer young people reported being hit, slapped or physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend, compared to 12.6% in 2007 and 6.1% in 2021.
However, 20.6% of young people had been verbally or emotionally abused by someone they were dating or out with, and 7.7% of young people had been physically coerced into sexual acts they didn’t want.
The YRBSS survey is conducted every other year targeting high schools nationwide.
Unsurprisingly, this trend reportedly continued during the first few years of the pandemic.
For young people today, the conversation about sexuality is moving from dualism to spectrum, and so are the types of sex, according to an Associated Press study.
While the language of sex has changed, the key question in CDC polls has not changed since the agency began its biannual polls in 1991: ‘Have you had sex? ?”
“Honestly, that question is a little funny,” says Kay, 18, of Lansing, Michigan. He identifies as LGBTQ and attends public high school. “There are probably a lot of teens who are like, ‘No, I’ve never had sex, but I’ve had other kinds of sex.'”
The Associated Press announced that it has agreed to use teenagers’ first and middle names for fear of reprisal and backlash when discussing their co-workers’ sex lives and LGBTQ+ relationships at school, at home and on social media.
Experts told The Associated Press that the CDC’s findings show how teenage sexuality is evolving, with greater gender fluidity and less stigma associated with being non-heterosexual. said it may indicate
They point to another finding from this year’s survey. The survey found that the percentage of high school students who identify as heterosexual has dropped from more than 89% in 2015, when the CDC began asking about their sexual orientation, to about 75%.
Meanwhile, the percentage of people who identify as gay, homosexual, or bisexual has increased from 8% in 2015 to 15%.
“How would the question be worded differently if young people were present when the question was formulated,” said Taryn Gall, executive director of the Michigan Youth Sexual Health Organization. I just wonder,” he said.
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