Teens & Health Related Articles & Blog Posts

Should all 11 and 12 year old girls be vaccinated against sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV)? Michigan appears poised to be the first state to enact this requirement for all girls entering middle school (though parents could opt out for religious or medical reasons). Many other states are likely to follow suit quickly.

When my wife and I were born, American teenage girls, aged 12 to 17, weighed an average of 118 pounds. Some weighed more and some weighed less. Today, the average has swollen to 130 pounds. And teenage boys have packed on even more weight, going from a healthy 125 pound average up to 141 in [...]

I’ve often heard parents comment, when watching their toddlers or school-aged kids jet giddily around the home (or restaurant), “I wish we could bottle their energy and sell it!” I wish we could, too. I wish we could sell activity to teens. We need to do it.

Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) points to a growing problem: an estimated 35 million teens, in the United States alone, are missing one or more doses of childhood vaccines. This leaves these teens vulnerable to catching preventable infections as adults, when the diseases are often more serious and have [...]

Exercise during the teenage years may be one of the most important ways to prevent osteoporosis.

Obesity among teens has become a major epidemic. More teens are overweight now than at any time in history. A January 2000 report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the single most powerful change teens can make to bring their weight under control.