Tobacco

• Girls are now equally or more likely than boys to smoke, depending on age. [CASA, 1996]
• Nearly 20 % of eighth-grade girls reported using cigarettes within the past 30 days. [MTF, 1998]
• Stress and depression are related to smoking for girls. Two-thirds of girls who say they smoke several cigarettes or more per week say they do so to relieve stress. Girls with depressive symptoms are more than twice as likely to smoke (23 %) as girls with low or no depressive symptoms (11 %). [CWF, 1997]
• The initiation of smoking in girls is associated with attaining desired self-image, feelings of maturity, independence, sexuality, health, and sociability. Frequent dieting is also found to increase the likelihood of smoking for girls in grades 7 through 12. [AMWA, 1996]

Alcohol and Other Drug Use

• From 1975-96, the rate of marijuana use among eighth-grade girls tripled. In 1991, 6.2 % of eighth-grade girls reported using marijuana in the past 12 months. In 1996, 18.3 % reported the same. In 1997, that rate went down to 16.1 percent and was further reduced to 15.3 % in 1998. [NIDA, 1998]
• Adolescent girls and boys are now equally likely to drink or use illicit drugs by the age of 15. (CASA, 1996)
• Today's girls are 15 times more likely than their mothers to have begun using illicit drugs.
• Since 1991, anabolic steroid use by teenage girls has approximately doubled, whereas steroid use by teenage boys is nearly unchanged. [MTF, 1998]

Sexual Behavior & Violence

• One in five high school girls reports that she has been physically or sexually abused. Younger girls (grades 5 through 8) also report significant rates of abuse: 7 % say they have been sexually abused and 9 % say they have been physically abused. (CFS, 1997.)
• Among violent girls, 70% are from broken homes. 58% have witnessed violence between parents. 45% were beaten or burned themselves, and 25% have been shot or stabbed. (Marks, 1998)
• More than 6 % (6.5 %) of ninth-grade girls first had sexual intercourse before age 13. [CDC, 1997]
• Alcohol use in adolescents is a strong predictor of both sexual activity and unprotected sex. Teenage girls who drink are more likely to have sex and have it without a condom than girls who do not drink alcohol. This reduced inhibition can lead to unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea. (Ibid, 1997.)
• Like alcohol, marijuana heightens the likelihood of unprotected sex. Teenage girls who have used marijuana at least 3 times in the past month are more than twice as likely to be sexually active and 25% less likely to use condoms than those who have never used marijuana. (Ibid, 1997.)
• The percentage of 15 to 19 year-old girls who have had sex declined from 62 % in 1991 to 51 % in 1998. [PTP, 1999]
• The overall U.S. teenage pregnancy rate declined 17 % between 1990 and 1996, from 117 pregnancies per 1,000 women age 15 to 19 to 97 pregnancies per 1,000 women age 15 to 19. [TP, 1999]
• Even though the teen pregnancy rate in the United States is declining, it is still the highest rate for teen pregnancies in the industrialized world. Furthermore, the 1998 National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy report shows that 78 % of U.S. teen births occur to unwed mothers. [NCPTP, 1998]
• In the United States each year, 11 % of women ages 15 to 19 become pregnant at least once before the age of 20. This rate is nearly twice as high as that of Great Britain or Canada. [NCPTP, 1998]

Mental Health

• 64% of girls in Youth Development Centers have attempted suicide at some point in their life (Bergsman, 1994).
• Although the majority of adolescent girls are healthy and show signs of strong mental health, 1 in 4 girls exhibits depressive symptoms - a rate 50 % higher than that for boys. Girls who exhibited symptoms of poor mental health also indicated that they often lacked a source of support during times when they felt great stress or depression. (CFS, 1997.)
• Adolescent girls report alarmingly high rates of thinking about suicide. Among high school girls, 1 in 3 had thought about suicide in the past 2 weeks, and another 3 % responded positively to the statement, "I want to kill myself." (Ibid, 1997)
• Girls who have been abused display more than twice the number of symptoms of poor mental health as girls who have not been abused. (Ibid, 1997)
• Self-confidence declines with age for girls, but not for boys. Based on 10 statements about their feelings of self-worth, only 39 % of high school girls (grades 9 to 12) were highly self-confident compared with 44 % of younger girls (grades 5 to 8). In contrast, self-confidence improved with age among boys, with more than half (55 %) indicating they were highly confident by high school. (Ibid, 1997)
• Evidence indicates that increases in depressive disorders and mood swings are greater for girls than for boys during adolescence. By ages 14 to 15, girls are twice as likely as boys to suffer from depression, a gender difference that persists into adulthood.