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Dangers of stds in teenagers
Health promoting strategies on stds
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INTRO:
As we progress into maturity, we were preached to again and again by our elders of the importance of abstinence.
Well, at least for a moment.
We were informed in middle school and high school of all the damage unprotected sex could cause, so, why didn’t so many of us listen?
This same thing goes for DARE. Does anyone even remember what that stands for?
Drug Abuse Resistance Education
What is it that makes us feel as if we are so invincible, that nothing terrible could possibly happen to us?
The unbreakable truth is we are not invincible; unfortunately, a lot of us had to learn the hard way. Our generation has so many unplanned pregnancies and we have even turned the epidemic into reality shows on TV (Teen Mom, 16 and pregnant).
Personally,
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A. 'Better Homes & Gardens' magazine created a study in their health column called "STD and Teens; A Reality Check" clarifying the troubling facts of all the distinctive STD's in teenagers.
1) Almost 40 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are infected with Chlamydia, which is the highest chlamydia infection rate of any age group
2) Of the 12 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that occur each year, 3 million (or 25 percent) are among teenagers, and about 13 percent of youth ages 13 to 19 contract an STD every year
3) Around 15 percent of sexually active teenage girls are positive for HPV, and the masses of those infected have a strain that has been associated with cervical cancer.
B. According to Health.ny.gov, the quantity of STD's among Americans is unbelievable.
1) One in 4 Americans has an STD. This means that 110 million people in the United States carry an STD and pass it to others.
2) You can’t tell by looking at someone that they have an STD. You may not know you have an STD. Even if you have no signs or symptoms, you can still spread an STD to others. The only way to know for sure is to get
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Treatment can help if you have HIV or another STD that can’t be cured. Getting treated can help you live a longer, healthier life.
3: Using protection could inhibit apprehension regarding unsuspecting parenthood and STD's.
A. Many of us have gone through anxiety worrying about STDs or pregnancies…. but is unprotected sex worth all the apprehension that comes with it? According to WebMD, worrying can actually harm your physical and mental health, and when it becomes excessive, it can lead to feelings of high anxiety and even cause you to be physically ill.
1) Prolonged worrying affects your day-to-day life so much that it hampers your appetite, routine habits, associations, sleep, and job functioning.
2) Worrying about a current predicament can produce chronic worriers excessive distress and debility.
CALL TO ACTION:
1. Executing sex education in all aspects in every school, including colleges and universities
2. Self-education: become attentive of what you can do to prevent STDs and unplanned pregnancies by visiting the doctor with your loved
It has been almost thirty three years since the first federal funding was put to use in “. . . sex education programs that promote abstinence-only-until-marriage to the exclusion of all other approaches . . .” according to the article “Sex education” (2010) published by “Opposing Viewpoints in Context;” a website that specializes in covering social issues. Since then a muddy controversy has arisen over whether that is the best approach. On one hand is the traditional approach of abstinence (not having sex before marriage), and on the other is the idea that what is being done is not enough, and that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach. This entails not only warning against sex, but also teaching teens about how to have “Safe Sex” (“Sex Education,” 2010).
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
Students should be informed about more than just “don’t have sex” because eventually it is going to happen and they need to be educated on the proper way to handle the situations. Because students are mostly taught abstinence it has created the situation to where researchers find” Abstinence-only education, instead of reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, has made teenagers and young adults more vulnerable to ST...
infections. Even though there are other diseases that can be contracted through sexual involvement, the term STD is kept to be referred as an infection obtained through any sexual means. These infections can come in many different forms such as bacterial, fungal, viral or parasitical and depending on their impact, once the infection has entered the body and/or body parts such as the genitalia or any sex organ, it can either remain at the site it enter or may spread.
Teens walk out of abstinence-only classes having been taught that condoms are dangerous, instead of the importance of using them correctly and consistently if they decide that abstinence isn’t the path for them. In her article “Mixed Marks for Sex Education Classes,” Karen Kaplan reveals that only 70 percent of students are taught the importance of proper condom use, 60 percent are taught where they can find them, and a measly 54 percent learn how to use them correctly. Kaplan goes on to say that 95 percent of students learn about STDs. That leaves 25 percent of the future of our nation without knowing where to go to get protection from STDs, and 5 percent are not being taught about STDs at
There are a lot of dangerous diseases in the world, some are more dangerous than others but it is important to know about the ones that can affect you. When it comes to these diseases you want to know more about them so you can protect yourself. In today’s society STDs have become a major issue. HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Herpes, the list goes on and on (Planned Parenthood). So with all of these STDs you need to be aware of the symptoms and understand what it is and what it does so you can protect yourself.
During the 1980s, efforts increased to alert the public to the dangers of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy, yet these problems have increased. Adolescents and young adults have been especially hard hit. Pregnancy and birth rates among teenagers are at their highest levels in two decades.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases or STDs are an increasing problem in today’s society. There are many of them and the number is increasing in the youth of the nation. According to a 2000 poll, 18.9 million cases were reported, and of that number, 9.1 million occurred in people between the ages of 15 to 24. America needs to recognize this problem more fully and find a cure for it. Abstinence is one way to help, but what people need to realize is that it is not working.
Two drastic Emergency Room cases were handled in 1998 at Mary Washington Hospital. Concerned mothers brought their 12 year old daughters into the hospital thinking they were suffering from severe stomach pain or even appendicitis…both girls were actually in labor (Abstinence, 2002). The United States has the highest teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates in the Western world (Planned Parenthood, 2003). Are teens getting enough knowledge on sex and how to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies? Another heartbreaking statistic is that teenagers have the highest rate of STDs of any age group, with one in four young people contracting an STD by the age of 21 (Sex-Ed Work, 2003). Is sex education really working in school? Or do we need to change the type of curricula that is taught? There is no question that sex education should be taught in schools, but the question is how? The purpose of this paper is to determine which curricula of sex education should be taught in schools to be most effective in lowering STD and pregnancy rates among teenagers.
Today it is no longer a novelty to hear that teenagers are having sex. However, while this “bedroom” activity may be fun, there are now ample reports indicating that rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in teenagers have skyrocketed. Current data reveal that nearly 25% of adolescent girls who have sex are infected with one of the four commonly sexually transmitted infections-namely gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes and HIV (Kann et al, 2015). Nationally, the prevalence of STDs account for 50% of cases in people under the age of 25. While every ethnic and race has been known to be affected, African American youth are disproportionately affected. These data are not a surprise to professionals who are engaged in adolescent sexual health because the numbers have been slowly creeping up over the decades, despite national educational policies to counter the threat of STDs (Sales & DiClemente, 2016). All the STDs have a significant impact on sexual and reproductive health, if they are mot promptly diagnosed and treated. Although many preventive strategies have been implemented in all communities, the rates of STDs are still increasing (Madkour et al, 2016).
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Sexually Transmitted Diseases STDs, a.k.a venereal diseases, infectious diseases passed from one person to another during sexual contact. STDs are the most common infections known. More than 12 million people in the United States, including 3 million teenagers, are infected with STDs every year. The United States has the highest STD rate in the world about one in ten Americans will contract an STD during his or her lifetime. People who do not know they are infected risk infecting their sexual partners and, in some cases, their unborn children. If left untreated, these diseases may cause pain or may destroy a woman's ability to have children. Some STDs can be cured with a single dose of antibiotics, but AIDS cannot be cured. Those most at risk for contracting STDs are people who have unprotected sex—without using a condom, people who have multiple partners, and people whose sex partners are drug users who share needles. Static’s show that Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 are most likely of catching STDs than older adults, because younger people usually have multiple sexual partners than an older person in a long-term relationship. Teenagers may be embarrassed to tell their sexual partners they are infected Teenagers may also be embarrassed or unable to seek medical attention for STDs. This means that they only more likely to pass the disease to other young people and have a greater risk of suffering the long-term consequences of untreated STDs. STDs are transmitted by infectious bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and single-celled organisms called protozoa that live in warm, moist parts of the body, like the genital area, mouth, and throat. Most STDs are spread while having sex, but oral sex can also spread disease. Some STDs are passed from a mother to her child while pregnant, when the disease enters the baby's bloodstream, during childbirth as the baby passes through the birth canal, or after birth, when the baby drinks infected breast milk. AIDS can be transmitted by blood contact such as open wounds, between people who share infected needles or received through an injection of infected blood. Some people believe that STDs can be transmitted through shaking hands or other casual contact, or through contact with inanimate objects such as clothing or toilet seats, but they can’t. Chlamydeous, is from trachoma is bacterium, is the most commonly transmitted STD in the United States.
The government likes to pretend that if high school students get taught the “abstinence-only” method they would never think of taking part in sexual activities. Statistically this is incorrect. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “56 percent of high school students are virgins”(Martin). For the 56 percent abstinence only is doing them well, but there are still 44 percent of high school students engaging in sex without knowing the precau...
Three million teenagers will contract a sexually transmitted disease and one in three women will become pregnant before they are twenty years old. Teens are contracting sexually transmitted diseases and getting pregnant at an alarming rate causing the government, schools, and parents to scratch their heads. America is the country with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Many are wondering what can be done to stop this. A debate has been going on about whether abstinence only education is doing any good for high school students in America. Abstinence only education teaches teenagers to abstain from all sexual acts until they are married. It does not teach about pregnancy or the different types of contraceptives that are available to prevent pregnancy. On the other hand, there is safe sex education. Safe sex education teaches teenagers facts about intercourse they need to know, acknowledges the potential consequences or risks of sexual behavior, and helps them make better decisions to protect themselves and their bodies.
Though I am not a sexually active teenager, refraining from sexual involvement has been difficult. I have been in serious relationships where the desire to have sex has been complicated by emotional expectations. Abstinence is especially hard in a society that seems to promote sex, as long as it is "safe" sex. I feel that the support, which used to come from authority figures such as parents and educators, is crumbling because of the initiation of programs such as condom distribution. It is as though parents and schools have forgotten that some teenagers, for whatever personal reasons, do not desire to be sexually active. I do not minimize the need to educate teenagers about safe sex and the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, for I am ...