16 And Pregnant Essay

Reality shows that are based on teen pregnancy like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom sheds light about the troubles on becoming a teen parent, finishing high school and struggling to buy the baby’s need and wants. Lately, these shows are stirring a debate if they are trying to support or avoid teen pregnancy. And this topic is important to the public, because it relates to the young community’s future. Young girls and boys can watch these shows and have different outlooks about having a child. Sometimes, glamorizing teen pregnancy on television might confuse the young community, because they can be fickle at times. They might think it is acceptable to be pregnant so young and others will consider waiting until marriage. Reality shows can either encourage or discourage teen pregnancy based on the individual’s mentality.

Teen pregnancy rates have dropped during the 1990s as a result of the fact that the authorities implemented programs meant to instruct teenagers concerning the risks associated with unprotected sex. The fact that safe sex-related programs have also experienced progress thus means that teen pregnancies should have continued to drop throughout the 2000s. "Controversies are battled out over whether or not television shows such as "16 and Pregnant" or "Teen Mom" are warnings of this phenomenon to others in the same age group, or if the premise of the shows manages to glorify young motherhood instead" (Fenster). The authorities consider that the success experienced by safe-sex programs during the 1990s means that it would be wrong for them to invest more resources in these agendas.

Over the last few decades the rates in teen pregnancy have been a debate; did they rise over the past few years or did they actually decline? Contrary to some doctors and politicians the numbers associated with teen pregnancy have decline over the last couple of years. Although there are still people out there who believe this to be an issue it’s made more of an issue than it actually is. The ads and commercials are set out to scare teen-agers into believing that were at an all time high for this issue, but realistically its actually the exact opposite. Teen pregnancy rates haven’t dropped on there over the course of the years. There are a few major factors that have contributed a great deal to this change. Those changes include but are not limited to: more resources being available to these teenagers to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant, society is more open to talking about this issue as well as the religion and culture change aspect of families today. Despite the beliefs of others, teen pregnancy rates are at an all time low for the first time in decades.

They also found that the show ‘16 and Pregnant’ led to more searches, tweets and Facebook posts on abortion and birth control…Hopefully educating teens on how not to get pregnant! The question “Could exposure to these media images of pregnant teens and very young new mothers have had an impact on how teens think about pregnancy and ultimately on whether they become teen mothers themselves?” does present itself. The timing of the introduction of ’16 and Pregnant’ could have helped the rapid decline of teen pregnancy over the past few years. An economic study argues that ’16 and pregnant’ may have contributed to one-third of the decline in the 18 months after its release. The researchers also looked to see whether high viewership in certain areas corresponded with a bigger drop in teen births…yes it did! “The results of our analysis indicates their exposure to ’16 and pregnant’ was high and that it had an influence on teens thinking, regarding birth control and abortion” the researchers write. That’s all well and scientific, but could a television show really have that big of an impact on teen birth rates? “It’s an extraordinary study done by two very cautious economists” said Bill Albert, chief programme officer at the national campaign to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy. While the researchers said they did a lot of” fancy economic work” to make sure their conclusion was one hundred percent accurate, the most compelling evidence came from the teens social media. The researcher had quoted some of findings to CNN. “This reminds me to take my birth control” and “watching sixteen and pregnant, going to take my birth control”, she said she had remembered reading…of course no one is crediting MTV alone for the declining teen birth rate, “About half of the recent dramatic decline can be attributed to the recession” the researcher said.

Many believe the children are solely responsible for their carelessness that results in early pregnancy. Looking at this problem more broadly, one can see all of the social changes that influence teen pregnancy. For example, the media promotes sex and relationships. According to the RAND Health researcher, Jeffrey Wasserman, children ages 12-18 who saw the most sex on television were twice as likely to initiate intercourse within the next year as to those who saw the least amount of sex in the media (2017). Many television shows and movies contain sexual scenes, but most of them don’t explain the risks of sexual activity. Moreover, teen pregnancy has become more widely accepted. While many still believe it’s wrong, this problem has become unfortunate but acceptable. With shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, the mass media even rewards these teenages for their early pregnancies. The acceptance of early pregnancy has increased, but people are still embarrassed to talk about sex to children and teenagers. Teen pregnancy can be prevented, and it starts with a change in

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of mothers who give birth out-of-wedlock are teenagers. MTV’s show “16 & Pregnant,” which has only been on air since June 2009, is already reflecting the rapid boom in teenage pregnancy across various cities in America. Since the early eighties MTV has been considered somewhat of a cultural phenomenon for American adolescents and its depiction of gender has a strong impact that continues to this day (Holtzman 2000). Created by Morgan J. Freeman (director of teen shows Dawson’s Creek and Laguna Beach), the show “16 & Pregnant” has been said to be guilty of exacerbating, normalizing and even glorifying teen pregnancy. Perhaps, it’s just reflecting a current social dilemma

Teen pregnancy is a growing epidemic in the United States. Teen girls are becoming pregnant at an alarming rate, with a lot of the pregnancies planned. With television shows broadcasting shows such as “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom”, it is giving teenage girls the idea that it is alright to have premarital sex and become pregnant. It is in a way condoning teen pregnancy.

As much as MTV had great purpose for the show, it does not harvest good results.” Some teens will only see the money and the attention that could be gained from teen pregnancy on TV shows because that what the content is presents to people. In the University of Arizona research, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey found a negative impact from shows like 16 and Pregnant, “Aubrey claims, however, that the show is filled with mixed messages about pregnancy.”There's this semi-scripted moment in every show where the girls say things like, 'If I had the opportunity, I would do things differently.' But, then there's also this adorable newborn, and the teen moms are getting all this attention from the people in their lives."” This provides evidence that most teenagers are only looking at the glamour side of the show, and not the challenges of being a teen

There is a great debate on whether or not mass media has an influence on teenage pregnancy. A study done by the RAND Corporation shows that teens are twice as likely to have sex or engage in sexual acts if they see similar sexual behavior in the media. Many objects in the media that involve sex target teens. Reality TV shows and teen dramas often portray the "cool kids" as the ones who are having sex (Chandra).Today’s teens are highly influenced by what they see in the media and this can change their behavior and choices. Some will argue that the media doesn’t influence teenagers, but how can we be sure of that? Today, the media portray teen pregnancy in movies, television shows, magazines, music, news reports, and books. The problems

A topic in American society that has proved to be an ongoing, and growing issue is that none other than teen pregnancy. In recent years, teen pregnancy rates have been increasing, which ultimately led to the topics increase of public and media attention. In American society teen pregnancy is often associated with negligence, as well as being irresponsible. In American society sex education for children is underdeveloped and instead society tends to use fear and shame to highlight/combat the dangers of unsafe or underage sex. American society uses fear to instill the idea that if you become pregnant as a teenager you are a burden to society. Along with fear society loves to shame its young women who have unfortunately stumbled upon the

In the early 90’s, studies have shown that teen pregnancies occur on a regularly basis and has been severely increasing (Newsweek: Birth rates in U.S, 1991-96). As a result, this brings out a wrong impression of women to society.

"Over one million teenage girls become pregnant each year. In the next 24 hours, about 3,312 girls will become pregnant. In addition, 43% of all adolescents become pregnant before the age of 20. These are incredible statistics when you consider that there are only 31 million females. The United States has the highest adolescent pregnancy rate in the developed world. As statistics show one in nine women between the ages of 15 through 19 become pregnant each year. Also, every 26 seconds a teenage girl becomes pregnant and every 56 seconds a child of a teenage mother is born."

At the non-profit organization known as RAND Corporation researchers performed three surveys on about 2,000 teens between the ages of 12 to 17 from 2001 to 2004. The results were published in the November edition of the journal Paediatrics, in the publication they focused on 700 participants nationwide who had engaged in sexual intercourse by the third survey. (Landau E, 2008, November 03) The researchers determined that even with the other related factors such as demographics and risk-taking behaviours put into play the connection between television sexual content and teen pregnancy still remained. (Landau E, 2008, November 03) In another survey published in Paediatrics more than 1,000 public middle school students in North Carolina were surveyed at the ages of 12-14 years old and were surveyed again two years later at the ages of 14-16 years old. They measured the students exposure to sexual content in television, movies, music and magazines and were divided into five equal-sized groups ranging from the lowest exposure to the highest exposure. The research showed that white teenagers even after taking into account other factors known to reduce the likelihood of teen sex, like parental disapproval of sex at that age and getting good grades, still increased. In fact each increase in grouping of sexual media exposure increased the likelihood of them being involved in teen sex by

"Teen pregnancy in the United States: In 2015, a total of 229,715 babies were born to women aged 15-19 years old, for a birth rate of 22.3 per 1,000 women in this age group. This is another record for U.S. teens and a drop of 8% from 2014. Although reasons for the declines are not totally clear, evidence suggests these declines are due to more teens abstaining from sexual activity, and more teens who are sexually active using birth control than in previous years. Still, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations, and racial/ethnic and geographic disparities in teen birth rates persist (cdc.gov)." As teenagers (in the United States), we are peer pressured or tempted to try new things. Some teens tend to try out drugs, and alcohol. However, some are having unprotected sex in which, is leads to having babies. This is called, teenage pregnancy. This has caused the United States to create records based off of the statistics and facts given from, researchers across the United States. In order to help prevent teenage pregnancy in the United States, teenagers must understand why, having a baby now isn’t such a smart move on their part.

The teen pregnancy rate had decreased by the maximum of about 55 percent. Most teen birth rates had also gone down about 64 percent, but yet teen pregnancies and birth rate for teenagers ages 15-19 in the U.S still remains one of the highest comparable countries. Due to parenthood, most of teen moms drop out of school. More than 50% of teen mothers never graduate to get their diploma. Sexually active teens that don’t use any type of protection has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year, 84 percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned.