Korean Teens Experience Sex Sooner These Days

A study recently showed that sex is one of the four activities that damages teenage health.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed students from 800 middle and high schools nationwide on the health-related activities of teenagers in 2007. Results revealed that, as students grew older, there was an increase in the percentage of students that had experienced activities or conditions that posed negative effects on health, such as sex, drinking, smoking, and obesity.

According to this study, over 10 percent of students in their second or third years of high school had experience of sexual intercourse. Among whom, 10.5 percent of girls had been pregnant. Approximately 5.2 percent of all respondents said they had had sexual intercourse, first experienced at an average age of 14 for both girls and boys.

Boys started to have wet dreams at the age of 13.2 and girls started to menstruate at the age of 12.4, which is 1.5 to 2 years faster than 10 years ago. Last year, 72 percent of students received sexual education at school.

An official at the KCDC said, "Sexual activity by teenagers can have direct harmful effects to health, leading to unwanted pregnancies, and it can also be closely linked to drinking, smoking, running away, and drug use."