- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - So
your teen-ager comes home with her eyebrow pierced -- should you be worried,
or glad that she didn't do something worse?
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- A report released at a conference this week suggests
a parent should be very worried because high school students with body
piercings tend also to have smoked, used alcohol, had sex, skipped school
and gotten into fights.
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- The study, by Dr. Timothy Roberts of the University of
Rochester in New York, shows clear links between body piercings -- other
than the ears -- and risky behavior.
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- "It's just like hairstyle, cosmetics, jewelry --
these are things an adolescent uses to project an image of him or herself
to the world," Roberts said in a telephone interview. "They can
give you a lot of clues about how an adolescent sees himself."
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- And while body piercing is becoming more mainstream,
in a teen it still signals rebellion.
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- Roberts, a pediatrician, told a meeting of the Pediatric
Academic Societies in Baltimore that he studied information on nearly 4,600
teens aged 12-19 taken in a U.S. government survey in 1995 and 1996.
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- The teens, living across the nation, were asked detailed
questions about their behavior.
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- "Females (with body piercings) were about 2-1/2
times more likely to have had sex, 2-1/2 times more likely to have smoked,
2-1/2 times as likely to have used marijuana in the past month, and almost
two times as likely to have skipped school in the last year."
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- Boys with piercings were five times as likely to have
skipped school in the past year, and had similarly higher risks for smoking
and drinking as girls.
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- Roberts said that body piercings did not guarantee that
a child was misbehaving, but they should serve as a warning to parents,
pediatricians and other health care providers.
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- "If your adolescent wants to have a body piercing,
it is a reason to talk to them," he advised.
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- At the least, he or she should get it done properly.
"Encourage them to get it done in safe, sanitary manner. Watch someone
else get one. Do they have an autoclave, a machine to sterilize equipment?
Do they use one needle and then throw it away?"
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- Roberts did a study last year that showed a very strong
association between tattoos and risky behavior in teens.
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- "This doesn't apply to adults," he cautioned.
"We didn't look at the effects of piercing on college-age people."
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- Comment
- From Scott Reich
5-9-2
-
-
- Each day I read the articles revealing the infinite wisdom
of men. I am responding to the aticle Concerning the Body piercing. Does
any one bother to go to God's Word for guidance or instruction? In Leviticus
ch: 19 verse 28 we are told Not to cut or mark our bodies. Just as in
Jeremiah ch: 16 verse 6.
-
- 32 days Prior to 911 Bush spoke to our nation concerning
Stem Cell research. He spoke of all the people he had sought guidance from.
Yet not once did my so-called Christian leader bother to look to The Only
True Living God for guidance. If so God would tell Bush to read Psalms
ch:139. God takes the unborn child which is still in the womb just as special
as any of us who are alive.
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