Health experts are urging parents, teachers and others to be alert to signs of self-injurious behavior in adolescents, which is become more frequent.

"There are no exact numbers for this largely hidden problem, but anonymous surveys among college students suggest that 17 percent of them have self-injured, and experts estimate that self-injury is practiced by 15 percent of the general adolescent population."

Self-injury is rarely driven by thoughts of suicide, but rather by deep emotional responses that the teen doesn't know how to process. Self-injurious behavior includes carving or cutting the skin, ripping or pulling skin or hair, head banging needle sticking, pinching and biting. Source: International Herald Tribune.

Labels: risky_behaviors, self-harm, self_injury