Sex and Skipping School -- Is There A Connection for Teen Girls?
A new study has found that teenage girls who skip school are probably doing much more than that. And none of it's good. Failing tests and engaging in risky sexual behavior have a lot in common with skipping school, researchers found, after flipping through 18,000 reports written daily by 14- to 17-year-old girls, according to newswise.com. The findings are based on a 10-year study of the development of 387 teenage girls' romantic/sexual relationships and sexual behavior, the Web site notes. During the study, the teens entered their daily activities and mood into a log. "This study demonstrates that young women’s weekday reports of skipping school and failing a test were significantly linked to more frequent vaginal sex, less frequent condom use and different sexual emotions, on that same day," said lead author Devon J. Hensel, Ph.D. Prior studies have shown that academic success is linked to lower sexual risk, but researchers have relied on retrospective infor...