Researchers have long recognized that risky behavior and depression are linked for adolescents; prevailing theories assumed that depressed teens turned to drugs and sex for self-medication. Now there is solid evidence that teen girls who experiment with risky behaviors (i.e., sex and drugs) are more vulnerable to depression and that teen boys who engage in binge drinking and heavy marijuana use are prone to depression.

In an article published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, five authors from different departments (Psychology, Pediatrics, Maternal and Child Health, Research and Evaluation, and Internal Medicine) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) explored whether “gender-specific patterns of substance use and sexual behavior precede and predict depression or vice versa.” The data for the UNC-CH study came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health — well-known for the large sample size and longitudinal design that allows temporal ordering among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents. Further, aspects of the UNC-CH findings were replicated in five other studies. The UNC-CH study, though, moved beyond previous ones by considering typical patterns found during adolescence and by examining gender differences.

The UNC-CH scholars found conclusively that sex and drug behavior predicted an increased likelihood of depression, but depression did not predict behavior. Among girls, both experimental and high-risk behaviors predicted depression. Among boys, only high-risk behavior increased the odds of later depression.

The message is clear: teens engaging in risky behavior are at risk for depression. No wonder teen depression is so widespread when almost half (47 percent) of high school students reported in 2003 (the number has dropped since then) that during the past month they had had intercourse, 45 percent reporting drinking alcohol and 22 percent reported that they had used marijuana. Almost one-third of the students said that their feelings of sadness and hopelessness had kept them from doing normal activities over the past year.

It is important to also note that only four percent of students who abstained from drugs and sex had a problem with either depression or suicide.

So much for the cultural mantra that “sex is no big deal” and that all we need to do for teens is provide them with condoms and teach them “safe sex” practices.

Not surprisingly, this is another study to report that girls are far more negatively affected by early sexual activity than are boys. Sadly, too, girls who are already engaging in other risky behaviors have increased odds of drug experimentation if they are depressed. Depressed girls who are abstinent, however, have decreased odds of engaging in any high-risk behavior.

So, why is the left so determined to continue the myth that teens are going to “do it anyway”; that they are captive to their hormones so we must provide them with “protection” and ignore everything else? Continued...