FRIDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that parents who enforce a no-smoking ban at home are less likely to have teens who experiment with cigarettes.

The Massachusetts study, which followed more than 2,200 children, ages 12 to 17, for four years, also found that teens living in households that allowed smoking were more likely to find smoking as socially acceptable. Teens whose parents allowed smoking at home also tended to think a higher percentage of local adults smoked, compared to teens with household bans.

THURSDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Text messaging may not seem an obvious safety concern. But the American College of Emergency Physicians warns that being distracted by text messaging at inappropriate times -- such as when crossing streets -- can result in serious injury or death.

Teens and young adults, in particular, "are arriving in emergency departments with serious and sometimes fatal injuries, because they were not paying attention while texting," ACEP President Dr. Linda Lawrence said in a news release.

THURSDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- One reason why abstinence-only programs don't do much to prevent teen sexual activity is because abstinence can mean different things to teens than it does to adults, according to a University of Washington study.

Teens' attitudes and intentions about sex are more powerful than their attitudes and intentions about being abstinent, the researchers found.

“America the Beautiful” is a new documentary that examines America’s obsession with beauty and what the markers are for being ‘beautiful.’ The movie follows a girl, Garren Taylor, who was cast into the modeling world at 12 and was told by 15 that she was ‘fat.’

Clearly, Taylor is a long way from fat.

Obviously, Taylor’s first reaction was emotional – she was angry and she said she slipped into a slight eating disorder. Her next reaction was to seek support and speak out.

THURSDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- In the past 17 years, there has been an overall decrease in risky sexual behaviors among U.S. teens, a new government study shows.

The rates of having sexual intercourse or multiple sex partners have been dropping, while the use of condoms has been increasing, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Eating meals together as a family can reduce a teen girl's risk of turning to alcohol or drugs, a new study suggests.

In families who ate at least five meals a week together, the teen girls were much less likely to drink alcohol, or smoke marijuana or cigarettes five years later, said study author Marla Eisenberg, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

The same effect wasn't seen for boys in this study, although Eisenberg can't say why.

FRIDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Teach parents how to talk about sex with their teen, and they will tackle this tough subject more readily and often, a new study says.

The mayor of a small New England city with a recent explosion in teen pregnancy said Monday officials still were not sure if high school girls made a pact to get pregnant.

"Any planned blood-oath bond to become pregnant — there is absolutely no evidence of," Gloucester (Mass.) Mayor Carolyn Kirk said at a press conference Monday held after a meeting of city leaders.

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WEDNESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous offer benefits to adolescents, even if they eventually stop attending meetings, says a study that included 160 teens enrolled at two treatment centers in California.

The teens, with an average age 16, stayed from four to six weeks at the centers, which were focused on abstinence and used a 12-step model. The teens were reassessed at six months, and one, two, four, six, and eight years after they left the centers.

One in every 12 American teens (about 2.1 million) ages 12 to 17 experienced major depression in the past year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

There was a large gender difference, with 12.7 percent of females and 4.6 percent of males reporting major depression. It's defined as a period of two weeks or longer of depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure, and at least four other symptoms -- such as problems with sleep, energy, concentration and self-image -- reflecting a change in functioning.