Today’s blog is being featured as a guest blog on another blog site. You will be able to read the begining of it here, and then click on the link below to finish it. While you are on that site look around, there is a lot to see. It’s amazing; I am sure you will like it!
Everybody is talking about health care, but few are mentioning that with all the money spent on health our teenagers are no healthier today than they were decades ago.
Modern medicine has improved the lives of most everybody. Infant mortality has decreased, childhood deaths from infectious diseases are extremely rare, many types of cancer are treatable and some can be prevented or cured, and organ transplants are commonplace. All in all, the quality of life has improved, and life expectancy has increased. Unfortunately, however, the mortality rate for teens and young adults is little changed.
In many ways teens are less healthy than they were ten, twenty or thirty years ago. This decline is health is seen across every social group – rich and poor alike. Twenty per-cent of kids from every part of town smoke cigarettes, approximately 15 – 20 % use marijuana and/or other drugs, 20% start to drink alcohol before age 13, 40% of have had an alcoholic drink in the past month, and 1/3 of all girls will get pregnant before the age of 20. And, 35% of those pregnant will have an abortion. And it gets worse, many become depressed, attempt suicide, commit murder or are murdered, have developmental disorders, and become disabled or die from accidents. Murder and suicide continue to be the second and third leading causes of teen deaths; number one is fatal accidental injury. Adolescents are the most medically under served group in our population.
If we are to change this bleak picture of our young people’s health, it has to start at home with….
To read the rest of this blog go to: http://www.radicalparenting.com/.