Risk-taking and adolescent development

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Abstract
The taking of health risks among adolescents–especially in the form of tobacco and alcohol consumption–remains one of the outstanding problems facing health education aimed at the young. The majority of adolescents react to preventive measures and statements about health with either refractoriness or non-compliance, blaming adults for alleged “hypocrisy” and double-standards over health matters. An important–but hitherto scarcely discussed–part of the background to this problem would seem to lie in the “blindness” of health researchers and educators to the multiple developmental functions of the health risk-taking process for the adolescents themselves. In this article, health risk-taking is analysed in its functional aspect, therefore, by focusing on possible developmental benefits. It can be shown that different stages of development and the ‘tasks’ inherent in them correspond closely to the initiation, stabilisation and habitualisation processes of health risk-taking practices. How adolescents cope with developmental demands includes learning how to deal with such intoxicants as tobacco and alcohol; the acquiring of risk-related expertise and competence can be defined and assessed in terms of a peculiar “developmental task” of this period. In developed societies, furthermore, the young conceive health in a frame of reference and with priorities different from those of epidemiologists and health experts. Professional neglect of such factors has led to the failure of many preventive measures targeted at this group. In a functional perspective of health risk-taking, an innovative concept such as the “health promotion approach” (aiming at lifestyle-formation rather than asceticism in isolated behavioural sectors) seems well suited to take up young people's needs and ensure their participation. The principal aim of prevention should therefore be the establishment of “abuse awareness” through the acquisition of comprehensive life skills.
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