WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Feb 7, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. teens who watch TV
wrestling are up to six times more likely to engage in risky behaviors like
fighting and unprotected sex.
Robert H. DuRant and colleagues of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,
N.C., conducted a telephone survey of 2,300 young people, ages 16 to 20, across
the United States. The survey found 22 percent of males and 14 percent of
females said they had watched professional wrestling on television over the past
two weeks.
The survey respondents who said they had tried to hurt someone with a weapon
watched 67 percent more wrestling than those who had not tried to hurt anyone.
Those who engaged in sex without birth control watched wrestling 42 percent more
frequently than those who used birth control.
DuRant said although no cause-and-effect relationship can be implied, but "we
can only conclude that as the frequency of watching wrestling increases or
decreases, the health risk behavior associated also changes."
The study, published in the Southern Medical Journal, found for each one
additional time watching wrestling over the past two weeks, the rates of
violent/risky behaviors -- sex without birth control, fighting with a girlfriend
or boyfriend, or threatening or harming someone with a weapon -- increased by up
to 19 percent.
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Copyright 2008 by United Press International