Teens who watch a lot of TV programs that show flirting, touching, sex scenes or discussion of sex are far more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant, a new study shows. The study found that over the next three years those who watch the most sexual content on TV are about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who watch the least.

“We were surprised to find this link. But teens spend a good amount of their time watching television—an average of three hours a day—and we don’t know a lot about its impact on their health decisions,” said Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist at rand, an independent research organization, who led the study.

“Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy. We found a strong association.”

Two thousand and three 12- to 17-year-old boys and girls were questioned by phone about their TV-viewing habits in 2001. They were asked how often they watched any of over 20 popular TV shows that had high levels of sexual content, including Sex in the City and Friends. The teens were then re-interviewed, the last time in 2004, and asked about pregnancies.

The study found that TV show choice was strongly connected to pregnancy rates even after accounting for other factors such as family structures, grades and parents’ education levels.

“We don’t think that [TV] is necessarily more significant than some of the family and neighborhood factors that can lead to teen pregnancies. But even when we removed all the other factors, we still saw a compelling link between a high exposure to sexual content on television and teen pregnancies,” said Chandra.

Teenage pregnancy is a major problem in the Western world. In the United States, about one in every three girls gets pregnant before age 20, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

TV’s influence is only getting worse, according to Chandra. “Sexual content on television has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research,” she said.

Previous studies have also found a link between watching TV shows with sexual content and becoming sexual active earlier, and between watching explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

According to psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, data suggests that only about 19 percent of American teens say they can talk openly with a trusted adult about sex. “For a kid who no one’s talking to about sex, and then he watches sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as this is what the cool people do,” the outcome is obvious, said Walsh.

Too often, parents simply do not educate their children about sex. Even much of what schools teach young people about sex is wrong, actually encouraging early sexual experience.

But there are real solutions that will make a lasting impact in the lives of young people. The instruction young people need most is on the subject of why God created sex in the first place. This and much more is covered in Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The Missing Dimension in Sex.Request your own free copy. Also, see our article, “Sexual Health: What Every High School and College Student Needs to Know.”