Thread: U.S. Teens Think They're Going to Die Young

U.S. Teens Think They're Going to Die Young

Monday, June 29, 2009 8:16 AM

CHICAGO -- A surprising number of teenagers - nearly 15 percent - think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven times more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

Dr. Borowsky said the number of children with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity, and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them was surprising," she said.

The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

"Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are," he said.

The study appears in the July issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.

Scientists once widely thought that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking.

Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna said the new study presents "an even stronger case against the invulnerability idea."

Fatalistic kids weren't more likely than others to die during the seven-year study; there were relatively few deaths, 94 out of more than 20,000 teens.

The researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of kids in grades 7 to 12 who were interviewed three times between 1995 and 2002. Of 20,594 teens interviewed in the first round, 14.7 percent said they thought they had a good chance of dying before age 35. Subsequent interviews found these fatalistic kids engaged in more risky behavior than more optimistic kids.

http://www.newsmax.com/us/teens_die_you ... 29535.html

CHICAGO -- A surprising number of teenagers - nearly 15 percent - think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

So did I . Now I am in my late 60's. When I was a teen, we had just finished WW II, the Korean war started, polio scared the hell out of everyone, and we did drill in our schools in case of a nuclear attack from the USSR. My brother was a member of the Ground Observer Corps (anyone else remember that? High school kids with government furnished field glasses holed up in a little shack, scanning the skies for enemy bombers .) 5 of the kids I grew up with were killed in separate car wrecks over those years. About the time I was 15, Red China started bombing Quemoy and Matsu, two islands in the Straits of Formosa, attempting to bully the west into removing support from Nationalist China (now Taiwan). Teenage angst and anxiety is nothing new. Only the names of the threats change. HIV for Polio. Terrorism and nuclear IRAN/North Korea for nuclear USSR, drug related deaths for alcohol related deaths. And alcohol related deaths. War in Iraq and Afghanistan for Korea. I did not think I would make it to age 30. Neither did my driving instructor.
No wonder these kids are scared. They should be. But the only real difference I see between what they face today, and what my generation faced is that we actually had some adult leadership in Washington.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

CHICAGO -- A surprising number of teenagers - nearly 15 percent - think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

So did I . Now I am in my late 60's. When I was a teen, we had just finished WW II, the Korean war started, polio scared the hell out of everyone, and we did drill in our schools in case of a nuclear attack from the USSR. My brother was a member of the Ground Observer Corps (anyone else remember that? High school kids with government furnished field glasses holed up in a little shack, scanning the skies for enemy bombers .) 5 of the kids I grew up with were killed in separate car wrecks over those years. About the time I was 15, Red China started bombing Quemoy and Matsu, two islands in the Straits of Formosa, attempting to bully the west into removing support from Nationalist China (now Taiwan). Teenage angst and anxiety is nothing new. Only the names of the threats change. HIV for Polio. Terrorism and nuclear IRAN/North Korea for nuclear USSR, drug related deaths for alcohol related deaths. And alcohol related deaths. War in Iraq and Afghanistan for Korea. I did not think I would make it to age 30. Neither did my driving instructor.
No wonder these kids are scared. They should be. But the only real difference I see between what they face today, and what my generation faced is that we actually had some adult leadership in Washington.

Wow 4thHorseman! Your post just validated why I admire your generation over my own. You guys have a perspective that none of us from my generation could ever have. You have been there, done that, and have the t-shirt. My generation is too concerned with being PC to see what dangers we truly face. You have handed down the torch, and I am truly sorry for what we have done. The only reason I think that I won't make it to your age is because of the times we are in. Whether mother nature takes us out, or our own PC politics causes "the fall of Rome", I don't feel that we can recover without SERIOUS consequences.