As a parent, you should probably take a closer look at what your children are watching. Here's one reason to do it: kids who watch movies with implied or blatant sex-related scenes tend to lose their virginity earlier in life, reports Forbes.com.

A study from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that, apart from having their first sexual encounter at a very young age, children who are regularly exposed to sex in movies tend to have more partners and have questionable sexual practices as they grow older. These findings are based on an experiment in which researchers asked 1,200 children between the ages of 12 and 14 to pick the movies they’ve seen out of a list of 600 popular titles. Then, six years later, the researchers asked the participants about their sexual experiences and habits.

Those who saw more movies with sex were found to take more sexual risks.

Knowing this may cause you paranoia, but you don't need to ban your kids from watching DVDs. What you can do is to carefully follow movie rating systems and allow them only to see those that are appropriate for their ages. It’s also better to start giving them “the talk” once they hit puberty in order for them to understand the changes in their bodies as well as the concept of sex. Ignorance is more dangerous that any R-rated movie, so arm them as much as you can with the right values and the proper information.


(Screencap from Glee courtesy of Fox)