Yet HIV in America is increasingly an epidemic of the young. Half of the 40,000 new HIV infections that occur each year crop up in people younger than 25, CDC statistics indicate. The most recent CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, out in September, found that while many high school students were courting trouble, different groups chose different ways to put themselves at risk. Girls are more likely to flirt with suicide, suffer from distortions of body image and experiment with weight-loss programs, the survey shows. Together, teens account for more than 1 million unintended pregnancies and 3 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases each year.
Adolescent mortality is worse in the USA than in many developed nations.
The death rate for young girls in the USA is twice that of girls in the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Germany. But death rates tell only a small part of the story. Just as worrisome, he says, are studies showing that unhealthy habits formed in childhood and early adolescence prime people for eventual heart disease or cancer, the nation's leading killers. Getting an adult to adopt healthier behaviors is tough. Getting teen-agers who sometimes seem to regard themselves as immortal to take care of themselves is tougher, especially when it means exercising, eating right, and clamping down on drinking, smoking and having sex.