Escobar-Chaves Soledad Liliana, Anderson Craig A
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, USA.
Future Child. 2008 Spring;18(1):147-80. doi: 10.1353/foc.0.0007.
Liliana Escobar-Chaves and Craig Anderson investigate two important trends among American youth and examine the extent to which the two trends might be related. First, the authors note that U.S. youth are spending increasing amounts of time using electronic media, with the average American youngster now spending one-third of each day with some form of electronic media. Second, the authors demonstrate that American adolescents are engaging in a number of unhealthful behaviors that impose huge societal costs. Escobar-Chaves and Anderson detail the extent of five critical types of adolescent health risk behaviors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-obesity, smoking, drinking, sexual risk taking, and violence. Obesity, the authors note, has become an epidemic among America's young people. Cigarette smoking among adolescents is one of the ten leading health indicators of greatest government concern. Alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are widespread problems among the nation's youth and are the source of the three leading causes of death among youth. More than 20 percent of American high school students have sexual intercourse for the first time before they reach the age of fourteen. And twelve- to twenty-year-olds perpetrated 28 percent of the single-offender and 41 percent of multiple-offender violent crimes in the United States in 2005. Escobar-Chaves and Anderson present and evaluate research findings on the influence of electronic media on these five risk behaviors among adolescents. Researchers, they say, have found modest evidence that media consumption contributes to the problem of obesity, modest to strong evidence that it contributes to drinking and smoking, and strong evidence that it contributes to violence. Research has been insufficient to find links between heavy media exposure and early sexual initiation. The authors note the need for more large-scale longitudinal studies that specifically examine the cumulative effects of electronic media on risky health behavior.
莉莉安娜·埃斯科瓦尔 - 查韦斯和克雷格·安德森研究了美国青少年中的两个重要趋势，并考察了这两个趋势之间可能存在的关联程度。首先，作者指出，美国青少年使用电子媒体的时间越来越多，现在美国青少年平均每天有三分之一的时间在使用某种形式的电子媒体。其次，作者表明，美国青少年正在参与一些对社会造成巨大成本的不健康行为。埃斯科瓦尔 - 查韦斯和安德森详细阐述了疾病控制与预防中心确定的青少年健康风险行为的五种关键类型的程度——肥胖、吸烟、饮酒、性冒险行为和暴力行为。作者指出，肥胖已在美国年轻人中成为一种流行病。青少年吸烟是政府最为关注的十大主要健康指标之一。酗酒和酒精依赖是美国青少年中普遍存在的问题，也是青少年死亡的三大主要原因的根源。超过20%的美国高中生在14岁之前就首次发生性行为。在2005年，12至20岁的青少年犯下了美国28%的单人犯罪暴力罪行以及41%的多人犯罪暴力罪行。埃斯科瓦尔 - 查韦斯和安德森展示并评估了关于电子媒体对青少年这五种风险行为影响的研究结果。他们说，研究人员发现了适度的证据表明媒体消费导致肥胖问题，适度到有力的证据表明其导致饮酒和吸烟，以及有力的证据表明其导致暴力行为。关于大量接触媒体与过早开始性行为之间的联系，研究还不足。作者指出需要更多大规模的纵向研究，专门考察电子媒体对危险健康行为的累积影响。
