SEX, DRUGS & SHOPPING

An article from late last week, from the "HealthDay News," reports that risky health behaviors are down among American teens. While the panoply of activities comprising "risky" behaviors is nowhere laid out in-full, the article alludes to some: dangerous driving; sexual activity; tobacco, drug & alcohol use; violence & fighting; obesity; and "couch-potato behaviors," such as watching too much television.

Now I'm the first to applaud any change in teen behavior that reduces incessant television watching & obesity, but frankly, when teenagers report engaging in less sex, fighting, drinking, smoking and driving like a maniac, I have to ask: then What The Hell Are They Doing? If you remove these activities, what's left? Sleeping, studying & . . . let's call it "self-help"? Watching a little television? Shopping?

Seriously, though, I have to ask three questions: What does it mean for our future to raise such a risk-averse generation? What are they doing instead? And, notice that excessive consumerism isn't on the list?

Risk-Aversion: Obviously one wants to live in a society where random fights between men don't break out over each disagreement. It's good not to worry that a car'll cross the divider at 90 M.P.H. and plow into you. But most adults avoid such behavior because they learned the dangers. I was a 16 year-old boy. I know what 16 year-old boys do when they get behind the wheel. Like most, I narrowly escaped death-by-flaming wreck a couple times, due to my own skill, that of the other drivers, and mostly good old Luck. Like everyone, I know someone or a few someones who left us a dozen-or-so years ago because their luck failed them.

But I, and everyone else who survived, learned what not to do and why.

Alternative Behaviors: Having survived my teen years, I'm well aware of the life force -- or the constant testing of that life force -- within teens. If they don't do one thing, they'll do another. Some kids fight all the time, some are hot rodders, some are promiscuous, some submerge their emotions in morose & antisocial activities. But it's coming out somewhere. Will these risky behaviors carry into adulthood?

The sowing of wild outs is a cliched concept, but we all know that those who didn't sow oats (or, alternatively, wheat or grain or rice or corn) at the appropriate time are gonna end up working it out somewhere. You show me a 45 year-old shamelessly chasing skirts, and I'll show you a guy who wasn't getting much in high school. Show me the guy who can't hold his liquor and seems on the verge of a weekly bar fight at 35, and I'll show you someone who was likely "well-behaved" at 15.

Am I oversimplifying? Sure. But going crazy while young is part of our nature. It's one reason soldiers are so young. Adults don't, and shouldn't, engage in the lunatic behavior required of fighting men.

The Risky Behavior That's O.K.: Drink too much, sport a whaling hangover, fail your math test the next morning, when your 16? Trouble, but not likely to cost you much down the road. Spend more than you have and end up deeply in debt at 18? See you in bankruptcy court in 10 years. Teenagers shop. A lot. They buy mass-marketed food and beverages. A lot. They're the number one market for many such products. Ever-changing fashions, music, games, soft-drinks. Turn on MTV or ESPN and note the marketing of "teen" or "youth" items.

But fighting is free. Money spent on a bag of weed doesn't help any respectable company. Beer doesn't cost very much and requires no credit card spending. These teens are the future adult citizens of The Nation That Doesn't Save. That spends its way out of potential recessions. That lives deeply in debt.

Risky behavior. Very risky. But, as defined by "HeathDay News," as well as the unnamed & uncited "new U.S. government report" mentioned in the piece, not that big a deal.

Or, quite likely, a very big deal, but one that's encouraged nonetheless.