Teen Pregnancy Rate A Reason For New Television Programming?

Let's hear it for the RAND Corporation. They have finally stated what parents have known for years, sex on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy. But will such a study help develop prevention programs? Doubtful.

Adolescents with a high level of exposure to sexually charged t.v. shows are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as those who watch shows like The Andy Griffith Show. Will more dialogue about sex in the media, reduce the pregnancy rate as Anita Chandra, the study's lead author and behavioral scientist at RAND suggests? Again, doubtful.
Supposedly, according to Chandra for every hour of TV time, there is 10 minutes of sexual content. So why should that be surprising. The news has covered teen stars who are having sex. High-profile teen pregnancies in spotlight

Even Lifetime Television has lots of kissing and bedroom scenes. Could it be that teen pregnancy has more to do with how parents raise their children? Why not put the blame where it belongs?
The RAND study, published in the November edition of the journal Pediatrics, looked at the results of three surveys of about 2,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 from 2001 to 2004.

But did the study go far enough? While it correlates the amount of time watching televised sexual content with teen pregnancy , the local barber Joe says horse feathers. According to Joe, if teens watched t.v. 24 hours a day in their parents home, then there would be no time to fornicate. Sally at the salon balks at Joe's suggestion but instead claims that parents forcing their teen age daughter to have Depo Provera shots for birth control is the answer.

The RAND study also found that adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy. Is that because maybe Dads really do matter? Perhaps all the radical dads out there encouraging daughters to participate in sports instead of chase boys really is a good thing. Does recommending parents staying together constitute discriminatory behavior since African-Americans, girls, and adolescents with behavioral problems had a higher likelihood of getting pregnant or impregnating someone according to the study?

Dr. Yolanda Wimberly, an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Morehouse School of Medicine and the medical director for the Center for Excellence in Sexual Health. has the quote of the week. "You cannot expect to have a sexually saturated society with all of your media outlets, but then, at the same time, be surprised when this influences people and their behaviors." Just what does that mean, doc? If that were true, then as many of 25% of all marriage would not be "sexless marriages." Of course, that assumes that there are TVs in those households...

The days of relying on The Andy Griffith Show writer's to teach our children morals and values s over. Parents need to be parents. That includes discussing the risks of sex and suggesting safe sex when appropriate. RAND stop wasting time and money on the obvious. Instead, use the money to finance education programs and to begin redistributing the wealth like soon to be President Obama advocates. After all, The National Institutes of Health reported in July that teen pregnancies rose in the United States from 2005 to 2006 for the first time since 1991. With better parenting, this can be just a statistical anomaly.