Teen Health Dangers
Teen Health > Teen Health Dangers
Teen health is a very important in every teenagers life. One of the most pressing issues in teen health today is the health risks and dangers that are facing teens usually result from psychosocial, behavioral, and economic factors. The first leading cause of death in teens is unintentional injury and it accounts for more deaths than all other causes combined. The second leading cause is homicide in teens ages 15 - 19. Almost three million teenagers have contracted a sexually transmitted disease sometime throughout their life time.
Teen health gets compromised when a teen feels like they are invincible when they are high on drugs or alcohol. Teens between the ages of 12 and 17, about 15.9 percent of them report illicit drug use and 41 percent report use of alcohol. One out of five teenagers smoke regularly by the time they graduate high school.Parents can feel out of their depth with dealing with their children's issues and sometimes attempts at intervention can cause further distance between child and adult.
Depression plays a major role in teen health dangers. Depression if not treated in time could lead down a road of awful consequences, suicide being at the top of the list. Not far behind suicide is cutting. Cutting can be a sign of deep depression. If you notice that your teen has become very withdrawn, secretive, wearing long sleeves in hot weather, and/or coming up with a lot of unexplained cuts on his or hers arms, legs, chest, or just about anywhere, there is reason for concern for your child.
Cutting is something that is somewhat hard to understand, but teenagers who cut themselves usually do it to make themselves feel better about the situation they are in or the feelings that they feel inside. They tend to keep emotions bottled up inside and these emotions start to overflow causing even more sadness, depression, or even anger and they don't
Teen health is in great danger if your teen is experiencing one or all of these factors. Cutting is their outlet of expression. The pain makes the intense emotions they have inside to ease and disappear making them feel somewhat normal again. If this is not treated at an early stage, their health may be at risk of failing even more because drugs and alcohol may come into play and that may be another temporary outlet for them to feel relief from their emotions that are building up inside.
Another teen health danger is smoking. Smoking is addictive and one out of every five teenagers smoke consistently by the time they graduate high school. Smoking can lead to lung cancer, breast cancer, emphysema, premature birth, heart disease and a whole lot more of terminal illnesses. If you suspect your teen is smoking, take a stand now before it is too late. Explain to your teen how smoking is affecting their health and what it's doing to their lungs. At first they may shrug it off, but go to the extremes. Take them to hospitals where there are terminally ill patients who are dying of lung cancer. Show them pictures of what their lungs could look like in a few years. Make it a point to not let your teen smoke. They will listen if you just talk to them.