How TV fuels teenage pregnancy

By Nnaemeka Meribe

    

Adolescent girls who watch television programmes containing high sexual content are more likely to become pregnant than their peers who watch fewer such programmes, according to a study.

The longitudinal study which tracked children from age six to 18, concluded that the children who are exposed to content intended for adults in television and movies become sexually active at the onset of adolescence.

The study suggested that exposure to sex on television might influence teen pregnancy by creating the perception that there is little risk in engaging in sex without using contraceptives and accelerating the initiation of sexual intercourse.

“Adolescents receive a considerable amount of information about sex through TV programmes which, however, do not highlight the risks and responsibilities of sex,” said Anita Chandra, the study’s lead author and a behavioural scientist at RAND Corporation, a United States non-profit research organisation which sponsored the study. “Our findings suggest that television may play a significant role in the high rates of teenage pregnancy in the US.”

The debate on whether exposure to the media affects behaviour has been raging for many years with researchers failing to reach an agreement. However, the study published in the journal, Paediatrics, is the first to establish a link between teenagers’ exposure to sexual content on TV and either pregnancies among girls or responsibility for pregnancies among boys.

“The amount of sexual content on television has doubled in recent years, and there is little representation of safer sex practices in those portrayals,” Chandra said. “While some progress has been made, teenagers who watch television are still going to find little information about the consequences of unprotected sexual practices among the many portrayals promoting sex.”

The rising rate of unintended teenage pregnancy has been a source of worry in many countries. However, authorities in these countries usually blame the rise on low use of contraceptives and never on the content of TV programmes.

For instance, a 2009 a report by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute found that unplanned pregnancies among Nigerian teenagers and young women have risen despite improvements in educational levels.

The study revealed that in 2003, 16 per cent of pregnancies among girls and women between 15 and 24 years had been unintended, compared with 10 per cent in 1990.

According to the study, nearly one-third of sexually active women aged 15-24 had had an unmet need for modern contraception in 2003. The institute blamed the rise partially on low use of contraceptives and lamented that Nigerian authorities had failed to promote sexual health information for young Nigerians.

“We are failing Nigerian adolescents when it comes to providing them with the information and services. They need to delay marriage and avoid unintended pregnancies,” said the report’s co-author, Prof. Friday Okonofua.

But the fact that it was during the period of the research that private TV stations opened for business in Nigeria (following the lifting of the ban on private broadcasting in 1992) and that it was also during the period that the home video industry blossomed makes the RAND study’s conclusion that there is a link between teenage pregnancy and exposure to high sexual content on TV seem plausible.

Indeed, many objects in the media that involve sex target teens. Reality TV shows and soap operas especially portray the fashionable people as the ones who are having sex.

For instance, a former member of cast of MTV’s Real World told the Washington Post, “I was upset about how they portrayed me. The only thing they went after was sex. When I complained, the producers told me, ‘Well, everything else was boring.” Again, there was much indignation in Nigeria in 2008 against the producers of Big Brother Africa reality TV for allowing lurid scenes to be broadcast in the show.

The RAND study was based on a national survey of about 2,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 who were recruited in 2001 and asked about their TV viewing habits and sexual behaviour. The participants were surveyed again in 2001 and in 2004. The analysis was based on results from about 700 participants who had engaged in sexual intercourse by the third survey and reported their pregnancy history.

The study found several other factors, in addition to TV viewing, that influenced whether adolescents were likely to experience a pregnancy. Adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy, while girls, African-Americans and those with more problem behaviours such as discipline problems were more likely to experience a pregnancy. Youths who intended to have children early also were more likely to experience a pregnancy.

The researchers encourage parents to follow current American Academy of Paediatrics viewing guidelines such as no television in the bedroom, no more than one to two hours of screen time a day, and to co-view television programs and have an open dialogue about its content with your children. They also suggest that while the results demonstrate a longitudinal relationship, more research needs be done to understand how media influences children’s growing awareness of human relationships and sexual behaviour.

A Montessori education expert, Mrs. Ify Nwobosi-Anatune, also advises that TV programme producers should come up with more educative programmes that target children and adolescents, even as she advises parents to try and regulate how their children watch TV and what they watch.

Have more sex, look healthier, younger

By NNAEMEKA MERIBE                  

Do you dread the wrinkles that come with old age? If your answer is in the affirmative, then you may need to be more active sexually, because scientists say that sex does the body good. In fact, anti-ageing experts say that the more sex you have, the younger and healthier you become. A good sex life, they say, also helps you to live longer.

An active sex life is good for your heart, memory and immune system, and, as a new book, Younger (Sexier) You, reveals, you can boost yours just by drinking coffee and eating peanuts

The book, written by a United States anti-ageing expert, Dr. Eric Braverman, says sex not only raises your hormone ­levels (so keeping you young), but can also boost your metabolism, brain, heart and immunity.

And if your sex life is tepid, rather than torrid, don’t despair, says Braverman, according to the Mail of London. Whether you’re 30 or 100, a combination of good diet, nutritional supplements and some ‘natural’ hormones will restore your drive and ensure that you enjoy the health benefits, too.

Many sexual problems, says Braverman, can be addressed by eating particular foods. Drinking coffee, he says, can help boost a flagging libido, while snacking on peanuts can enhance arousal. Eating brown rice can help combat sexual coldness, while avocadoes might increase your capacity for pleasure.

But while agreeing that regular sex can increase metabolism and boost hormones, one consultant family physician at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Dr. Tony Aluka, doubts how regular sex can make one to look healthier and younger.

However, Braverman says the other great physical enemy of a healthy sex life is the menopause — and the male version, the andropause (both of which entail the loss of sex hormones which affect sex drive and function).

But it’s not just about the mechanics of sex. Healthy sexual function is also about how your brain reacts to the messages it’s receiving from your body, he adds.

When your brain is working at its peak, brain chemicals are produced and dispersed at the correct levels. A reduced sexual desire can apparently be the first sign there’s a ­problem with one of the four key brain ­chemicals. These are dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA and serotonin. A deficiency in each will produce ­specific types of sexual problem.

In fact, some scientific studies have suggested that sex can bring many health benefits. A 2001 study, Sex and the heart: what is the role of the cardiologist?, published in European Heart Journal, notes that sex is good for the heart. According to the study, anything that exercises the heart is good for it, including sex. Sexual arousal sends the heart rate higher, and the number of beats per minute reaches its peak during orgasm.

Sex can also be a stress buster. A study on blood pressure and sex published in Biological Psychology of February 2006 claims that sex can help you beat the stresses of 21st Century life style.

The 46 men and women who participated in the study kept a diary of sexual activity, recording penetrative sex, non-penetrative sex and masturbation. In stress tests, including public speaking and doing mental arithmetic out loud, the people who had no sex at all had the highest stress levels. People who only had penetrative sex had the smallest rise in blood pressure. This shows that they coped better with stress.

Researchers have also found a link between how often one has sex and how strong one’s immune system is. A study, Sexual frequency and salivary immunoglobulin A (IgA), published in the June 2004 edition of Psychology Report found that students who had sex once or twice a week had higher levels of an important illness-fighting substance in their bodies. Immunoglobulin A (IgA) was 30 per cent higher in those who had sex once or twice a week than in those who had no sex at all. However, the lowest levels were in people who had sex more than twice a week. But the researchers say more research is needed before it can be proved that weekly sex helps your immune system.

However, in another study correlating overall health with sexual frequency, Queens University in Belfast Northern Ireland tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The study was designed to compare people of similar age and health. Its findings, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal, were that men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards.

Sex has also been found to be therapeutic in many other ways. An article on reasons to have sex every week, published on the December 10, 2007 edition of Newsweek magazine lists the following as ways that sex can boost your health:

* It’s a beauty treatment. In a study at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland, a panel of judges viewed participants through a one-way mirror and guessed their ages. Those who looked seven to 12 years younger than their age (labeled ‘superyoung’) were also enjoying lots of sex—four times a week, on average. OK, maybe they were having so much fun because they looked young. But it’s likely the sex was helping, researchers say. One reason is that it raises a woman’s estrogen level, which helps make hair shiny and skin supple.

* It burns calories. A little over four calories a minute, or the equivalent of four Hershey’s kisses in a half hour of love.

* It can cure migraine. For a woman a migraine might actually be a reason for making love rather than avoiding intercourse: the increase in endorphins and corticosteroids during arousal and orgasm is analgesic.

* It promotes regular menstrual cycles. A series of studies by behavioral endocrinologist Winnifred Cutler, and colleagues at Columbia and Stanford universities found that women who have intercourse at least weekly (except during their period) cycle more regularly than abstainers or the sporadically active. Cutler argues that intimacy is essential, not orgasms, “Regular exposure to a loving partner has extraordinary effects on health and well-being.”

* It can prevent accidents. Women use the muscles of the pelvic floor to stem the flow of urine. As they age, they need to keep these strong to avoid peeing accidentally. The same muscles are exercised during intercourse.

But is there anything like too much sex? The answer is different for male and females. According to the article, Sex does the body good, published on www.msbn.com, Dr. Claire Bailey of the University of Bristol, says that there is little or no risk of a woman overdosing on sex. In fact, she says, regular sessions can not only firm a woman’s tummy and buttocks but also improve her posture.

As for men, Dr. J. Francois Eid, a urologist at Weil Medical College New York Presbyterian Hospital, says it’s definitely possible to get too much of a good thing, now that drugs such as Viagra and Levitra have given men far more staying power than what may actually be good for them.

The male organ, Eid says, is wonderfully resilient. But everything has its limits. Penile tissues, if given too roistering or prolonged a pummelling, can sustain damage.

However, arguing that regular sex may not make one healthier and younger, Aluka says that a look at many commercial sex workers will give a lie to the claim.

He said, “Yes, sex can increase hormones, raise metabolism and release tension. I have watched a documentary of an elephant on heat. It was very destructive and only became calm after having sex. It can be the same for humans. But that is how far that can go.

“But I doubt whether regular sex can make one look healthier and younger. If you look at many commercial sex workers or some people living in rural areas that have more than one wife, you will notice that they do not appear healthier and younger. And these are the people that have sex regularly.

He says while some of the studies’ findings may be true in the Western world, it may not be replicated in the Nigerian environment where many people do not feed well. “So, telling somebody who is no feeding well to have sex regularly may be telling the person to commit suicide,” he says.

Want to reach the top? Get a mentor

By Nnaemeka Meribe      Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009               The dream of most young professionals is to get to the zenith of their careers. Of course, some also dream of veering off along the way to become entrepreneurs. However, whether a young professional wants to get to the top of his career or become a successful entrepreneur, experts say one sure way of achieving that dream is having a good mentor—someone who has travelled that road before. A mentor is like a guiding light that reveals the path to success to his protégé. The mentor is usually more experienced than the mentee. He possesses the wisdom that only comes from experience. The mentee is someone who is looking to move up the career ladder, usually following in the footsteps of the mentor. ”Mentoring can be physical, direct, intellectual or spiritual. Every one that seeks to grow needs a mentor or an inspirer. We all need a shoulder to climb through,” says the Executive Vice Chairman of Pertcom & Partners, a marketing communications firm, Dr. Osar Philips Emokpae. ”Those who may not have direct mentors can seek mentoring through reading books written by a desired mentor.” To the Managing Director of After School Graduate Development Centre, Detoun Ogwo, ” everyone needs the support, feedback and advise of someone who has gone ahead of you, so it is critical that young professionals with compelling goals find someone who can mentor them” Emokpae, who is the author of the motivational book, ‘From Minimum to Maximum‘, says some of most successful chief executives are those who submitted themselves to be mentored. ”A mentor is a builder of leaders. Jack Welch mentored Ihmelt to become Chief Executive Officer of General Electric. Dr. Christopher Kolade mentored Bunmi Oni to become CEO of Cadbury. Mr. Felix Ohiwerei mentored Festus Odimegwu to become CEO of Nigerian Breweries and Mr. Biodun Shobanjo mentored Jimi Awosika to become CEO of Insight”, he explains. But does everybody need a mentor in order to succeed? In their article in www.steppingup.ysf.ca titled: ”Why do you need a mentor?” Messrs Aaron Hakim, Jean-Philippe Demers, and Tahbit Chowdhury, acknowledge that ” Award-winning projects have been prepared by participants who had little external help and guidance. Some projects were designed completely independently, thus showing no apparent need for formal mentors.” They, however, add that the vast majority of winners at top fairs have mentors. For Ogwo, it cannot be said with cast-iron certainty that every young professional requires a mentor to succeed. She, however, stresses the importance of submitting oneself to the guidance of a mentor. ”I can speak from a personal perspective, I have two mentors- one in Nigeria and the other in an international firm outside Nigeria. They have contributed immensely to my career development largely because I open up myself to their critique and stretching assignments, she explains. ”I think it is advisable to have a mentor but mentoring must not be confused for connection in the context we hold it in these parts, it is a developmental experience that involves a commitment from the mentee to learn and pay the price of success.” A 2004 study by an American business charity, Catalyst, titled: ‘Women and Men in United States Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities‘ also stresses the role mentors play in career success. Findings from the study revealed that 56 per cent of female and 52 per cent of male executives named ”having an influential mentor or sponsor” as an important or very important success strategy. Ogwo, however, advises young professionals to be circumspect in choosing mentors. She says they should ” look for someone who is interested in your development and whom you can be accountable to, it does not necessarily have to be a popular or famous person especially if they are extremely busy and cannot commit to the time that building a mentoring relationship takes”. However, the relationship between a mentor and a mentee, experts say, should not be a master-servant affair. The ”relationship should be professional and guided by principles of mutual respect, humility, commitment to learning and focus”, says Ogwo who is also a career counsellor. ”The mentee must know what learning gaps relating to the mentor will help them close and engage the mentor in question and answer sessions that may shed some light on how they navigated their careers. In my estimation, mentoring is largely a learning intervention driven by the mentee and on which action must be taken to implement learning curves”. This relationship could also be mutually beneficial. Writing in www.about.com, Ms. Dawn Rosenberg McKay, notes that while ”the mentee receives guidance and helpful advice, and perhaps invitations to industry events and introductions to industry higher-ups, the mentor also benefits from the opportunity to strengthen his leadership skills”, New entrepreneurs will also find mentors valuable. When there is no boss any more to turn to for advice or direction, there is the need for a good reliable sounding board, second opinion, and sometimes just emotional support. At such times mentors become very useful. ”Entrepreneurs do not usually have good training”, says business consultant and motivational speaker, Mr. Nath McAbraham-Inajoh. ”But when an experienced entrepreneur take you under his wings, it can be invaluable. You can imagine what it would mean for a young entrepreneur if a Dangote puts a word or two across to his (Dangote‘s) business associates for him.” But McAbraham-Inajoh, who is a Principal Partner at Mc Abrahams Limited, advises against firms having mentorship programmes where new hires are paired with those already established in their jobs, saying mentoring works best when it is voluntary. ”For companies, I usually advise that mentoring is not forced on younger employees. It will be counter-productive if a young person is paired with manager X and two of them do not flow. So it is best when a young person voluntarily submits himself to a mentor rather than being paired with a mentor by the company”, he says.

How to bring back the books to Nigeria

By Nnaemeka Meribe     

Reading, Sir Francis Bacon said, maketh a man. The revered 16th century English lawyer, philosopher and statesman must have looked into every other activity of man and arrived at the conclusion that only reading could transform man into a real man.

On own our shores, the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said on his intimacy with books, “All along, the motto of our youth, which I personally regarded as golden, was always vivid in my mind: ‘know something about everything and everything about something’ ’’. Perhaps, it was this credo that steered Awolowo to greatness.

As one of the most cerebral politicians that emerged from Africa, Awolowo authored 17 books. Among his contemporaries on the continent, only the late Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana, who authored 13 books, came close to his prolificacy as an author.

Indeed, Awolowo was a testimony of Bacon’s statement, as he could not have achieved greatness if he had not, from his youth, inculcated the habit of reading. Of course, without reading, there is no way one can ‘know something about everything and everything about something.’

Perhaps, President Goodluck Jonathan is also Bacon’s disciple. Having written a bachelor’s degree project, a master’s degree dissertation and a doctoral degree thesis, I think that our President is qualified to be called a man of letters. In other words, our President loves education and, by extension, reading.

Remember, he told us during his formal declaration to run for the coming presidential election that if not for his education, he would not have been where he is today.

Having seen the benefits of reading, our darling President now wants us to keep reading. He is sad that the reading culture has died in the country and is poised to resuscitate it; hence, he came up with the Bring Back the Book campaign. The President unveiled the campaign in Lagos on December 20, 2010. Also presented on that day was a book, My friends and I, a compilation of some of the President’s conversations with friends on policy and governance via facebook.

A presidential aide, Mr. Oronto Douglas, said the campaign was designed to revitalise the reading culture, with knowledge serving as a tool for development.

According to him, “The time has come when educational opportunities must be for all; when knowledge must be promoted over the mad rush for materialism. Book culture, if properly put in place, will help promote a new Nigeria.”

Indeed, this is a laudable project. It is good thinking. But the President is going about it the wrong way. He is planting the seeds before clearing the bush.

Gathering a group of youths in a hall and inviting literary icons to talk to them on the benefits of reading is not enough to motivate them to imbibe the culture of reading.

To make reading a way of life here, there are certain necessary conditions that must be fulfilled. And chief among these conditions is ensuring that books are available and accessible to a large percentage of the population. In other words, functional public libraries must be built and stocked with up-to-date books.

Public library is not just central to the inculcation of reading culture, it is central to national development.

Though there are other classes of libraries, their services are restricted to individuals who have gained membership through academic qualification and membership on subscription. But every individual can benefit from the wide range of services offered by the public libraries because it is free of charge and run through public funds.

Unfortunately, successive governments (at all tiers) in the country have overlooked the public library. It is either that they are ignorant of its potential or they are just not interested in it. But in developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom where schools (from kindergarten to universities are stocked with relevant and up-to-date books), public library is recognised by legislation designed to ensure that good library services are available to every individual in the society free of charge.

The tax-supported American public library is referred to as ‘people’s university’ and its major objective is to educate people for democracy. In the United Kingdom, free services of the public library are available to about 99 per cent of the population. The total book stocks of the libraries amount to over 70,000,000 volumes and approximately 150,000,000 books are borrowed each year by more than 14,000,000 people.

As a student in the United Kingdom, I saw, firsthand, how the public library is an integral part of the people’s life. I lived in the London Borough of Harrow, Middlesex. A borough is the equivalent of a local government area. Harrow has seven electronically-linked public libraries in different parts of the borough that are equipped with up-to-date books, films, audio-visual facilities and computers connected to the Internet. The libraries stock current newspapers and magazines and on daily bases registered (Registration is free. One only needs a proof of address to get registered by the very courteous staff members) members and visitors (who are usually given visitors’ identity cards) pop in there and read them.

Each of the libraries has a children’s department, which contains collections graded according to age and staffed by specially trained librarians. The libraries co-operate closely with schools, lending classroom collections in return for which the teachers instruct the pupils in the use of library and encourage them to become library borrowers. A feature of the children’s department is the story-telling hour during which stories are read to children from story books and history books.

Thus, even before children start schooling, they have already learnt the importance of the library. They enjoy visiting there; they see their parents and older siblings visit there now and again. They inculcate the culture at a very young age and as such nobody needs to preach to them when they are older that they need to make the printed word their friend. And as it is with Harrow, so it is with other boroughs in London and councils in other parts of United Kingdom.

I do not know how many local government areas in our country that have libraries. I doubt if there is any local government chairman in Nigeria that thinks that a library is essential to the development of his council. Some states do not even have libraries. The few states that can boast of libraries have uncomfortable halls stocked with obsolete books. Many Nigerians, even those with doctorate degrees, have not visited a public library in the country. In fact, those who have visited told unsavoury tales. A friend who went to a state’s library for a research some years ago regretted ever going there. His grouse was not just that the place was very uncomfortable and stocked with ‘ancient’ books, the library attendants, according to him, were everything but courteous.

But what do you expect in a country where libraries are luxuries, even in schools? Or won’t a library be a luxury in a primary and a secondary school where lessons are taken under the tree? It is common knowledge that many university graduates in our country have never visited a library—even the one in their universities.

I pray that the President’s Bring Back the Book campaign will not be what Nigerians think it is : an election campaign gimmick. I would like to see a President that will give the lie to this popular suspicion by starting with a better funding of education so that schools will have libraries well equipped with Internet facilities and up-to-date books. Besides, I believe the campaign will make more sense if the name is changed to One Village, One Library. Imagine what will happen to reading culture in the country if every village has one public library.