It is generally believed non-marital sex adversely impacts on a teen's mental health. But a new study shows that the negative mental side effects of a teen's loss of virginity are confined to a specific group.

Depression overtakes those who have sex earlier than their peers and whose relationships are uncommitted and ultimately fall apart. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Ann Meier, University of Minnesota assistant professor of sociology, studied 8,563 seventh- through 12th-graders over an 18-month period, measuring for depression and low self-esteem. Meier compared the mental health of teens who didn't have sex to teens who were virgins at the beginning of the study, but who lost their virginity during the 18-month period.

She found that while the majority of teens did not experience depression as a result of first-time sex, some did -- those being the youngest teens (girls who had sex before age 15 and boys who had sex before 14) and whose relationship was not emotionally close and dissolved after sex. Girls in this group were particularly vulnerable to depression.

Meier believes it's the combination of these factors that make young teens most vulnerable to depression or low self-esteem after first-time sex. "Being female or younger than the average age at first-time sex among your peers increases the chance of depression, as does a lack of commitment or intimacy within the relationship and what happens to the relationship after first-time sex," said Meier. "For girls in uncommitted relationships, ending a relationship with sex has more of an impact on mental health than ending that same relationship if it did not involve sex."

The risk of suffering mental health problems from having sex as a teen is relatively low, but Meier said low risk still represents a large group of teens affected, as half the teen population is having sex.

But she also cautioned that the study does not suggest that
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