No sex in teen years, better health.
That was the conclusion reached in a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on teenage health behaviours in connection to their self-reported sexual activity, The Christian Post reported.
The CDC report says teens who abstain from sex are much healthier on many fronts than their sexually active peers.
According to the CDC study, as reported in The Federalist, teenage virgins are 3,300 percent less likely to smoke daily than their peers who are sexually involved with someone of the opposite sex.
Teenage virgins are also extremely less likely to binge drink, smoke marijuana, and get into physical fights among other dangerous activities than their sexually active peers.
Chaste youth are also more likely to get a solid eight hours of sleep every night and eat breakfast daily, the report says.
"Our children should know there's very compelling scientific evidence on so many levels showing how saving the precious gift of their sexuality for the safe harbor of marriage is nothing about old-time moralism or unhealthy sexual repression. Just the opposite is true," Glenn Stanton wrote on The Federalist.
For her part, Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, said the advantages of refraining from sex during teen years are not just physical.
"I've noticed that the chaste students we have worked with over the years at the Ruth Institute do not have the angst that one so often attributes to young adulthood," she told The Christian Post on Monday.
"I think it is because avoiding sexual activity avoids a lot of psycho-social drama that goes along with it. 'Does he still like me?' 'What is she really doing with that other guy, and do I really care?'" Morse said.
The CDC report is based on findings from 25 state surveys, and 19 large, urban school district surveys conducted among students in grades 9–12 which took place between December of 2014 and September of 2015.
For her part, Rebecca Oas, associate director of research at the Center for Family and Human Rights in New York City, said parents and teachers are partly to blame for the promiscuous behavior of some teens.
Often the operative assumption is "that adolescents will inevitably engage in these behaviors," she said.
"And yet, we have also seen data that more students are remaining abstinent than before, so the idea that this is somehow an impossible standard is just not true," Oas added.
