Teens who watch wrestling take more health risks

I grew up on this stuff and I am pretty normal, but that was back in the day. I wonder what they say about the UFC?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenage fans of TV wrestling are more likely than their peers to be aggressive or take chances with their health, a study suggests.

Researchers found that among 2,300 16- to 20-year-old Americans, those who watched professional wrestling were more likely to be violent, smoke or have unprotected sex -- and the more they watched TV wrestling, the greater their odds of taking such risks.

However, he told Reuters Health, it is "definitely possible" that TV wrestling affects teenagers' behavior. In an earlier study, Wolfson and his colleagues found that teenage girls who watched wrestling were more likely to get into fights or carry a weapon at a later point in adolescence.

In general, researchers believe that children can become desensitized by violence in movies, TV and video games -- particularly when those portrayals downplay the consequences of violence. A steady dose of media violence may also influence young people's perceptions, priming them to take other people's words and actions as hostile and to react aggressively.

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