This paper reviews the evidence on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of adolescent girls in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) in light of the policy and programme commitments made at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), analyses progress since 1994, and maps challenges in and opportunities for protecting their health and human rights. Fin...

BACKGROUND Many adolescent girls in low-income and middle-income countries lack appropriate facilities and support in school to manage menstruation. Little research has been conducted on how menstruation affects school absence. This study examines the association of menstrual hygiene management knowledge, facilities and practice with absence from school during menstruation among Bangladeshi sch...

Department of Reproductive Health and Research and UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1211, Switzerland; Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, 37203 USA; University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine and British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, Va...

OBJECTIVE Social media engagement by adolescent girls is high. Despite its appeal, there are potential negative consequences for body dissatisfaction and disordered eating from social media use. This study aimed to examine, in a cross-sectional design, the relationship between social media use in general, and social media activities related to taking "selfies" and sharing specifically, with ove...

Dissonance-based body image interventions are among the most effective interventions for adolescent girls. However, dissemination of these interventions remains challenging. In addition, the emerging field of positive body image suggests that interventions should promote body appreciation as well as reduce pathology. The current study examines whether undergraduate students can effectively deli...

BACKGROUND Adolescence is a period of significant physical, emotional and intellectual changes, as well as changes in social roles, relations and expectations. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to inquire into eating attitudes among female adolescents. SUBJECTS AND METHOD The sample consisted of female adolescents, age of 16-17, attending first grade Economic and Medical Secondary School pupils i...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalences of tobacco use, tobacco experimentation, and frequent smoking among Brazilian adolescents. METHODS We evaluated participants of the cross-sectional, nation-wide, school-based Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents (ERICA), which included 12- to 17-year-old adolescents from municipalities of over 100 thousand inhabitants. The study sample had a cluster...

BACKGROUND Understanding sexual behavior before marriage is relatively rare in the East, especially in Islamic societies, because sexuality is a sensitive subject for many Muslims. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to identify premarital sexual intercourse-related individual factors among Iranian adolescents. PATIENTS AND METHODS This qualitative study was performed on 30 students of...

OBJECTIVE To assess the relation between demographic factors and film smoking stereotypes in adolescents and the potential influence of smoker stereotypes on smoking susceptibility. DESIGN A cross sectional questionnaire survey of school students (n = 3041) aged 12-13 and 16-17 years who were asked to describe the personal characteristics of female and male smokers in films. SETTING 15 prim...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the effects of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, both inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity, on the development of smoking in male and female adolescents. METHOD Twin difference methods were used to control for shared genetic and environmental confounders in three population-based, same-sex twin samples (N=3,762; 64% monozygo...