Are tattooing and body piercing indicators of risk‐taking behaviours among high school students?

Abstract

PurposeTo date, studies pertaining to possible links between body modification and risk‐taking behaviours have been conducted mainly among targeted groups. The objective of this study is to examine the influence of a number of risk‐taking behaviours on the probability of being pierced or tattooed among a general adolescent population.MethodsData come from a cross‐sectional study conducted among a sample of 2180 students aged 12–18. Data were collected directly from students through a self‐report survey.ResultsFindings confirm the “risky” nature of these practices even though the tattooed and pierced subjects of this study were from a general adolescent population. Factors that contribute significantly to the likelihood of teenagers being tattooed or pierced, for both genders, are associated with “externalized risk behaviours” such as multiple drug use, illegal activities, gang affiliation, problem gambling, school truancy and rave attendance.ConclusionNowadays, tattooing and body piercing are perceived by many as body decoration, increasingly belonging to the realm of generational conformity. Contrary to this view, our results suggest that these practices among adolescents are mostly adopted by those who are involved in various deviant or illegal activities, which are often interrelated.

Tattooing and body piercing as lifestyle indicator of risk behaviors in Brazilian adolescents

“…In the present study, 8.4% of the youths had body modifications: 3.2% tattooing and 6% body piercing other than earlobes. This is the first survey regarding body modifications in Brazilian youths, and as observed by others [1,[9][10][11][12][13], we found a stricter association between body modifications and risk behaviors, highlighting these practices as a useful marker for behaviors that put individuals at risk for morbidity and mortality. Indeed, tattooed/pierced scholar adolescents reported 2.7-fold more sexual experience, 7.2-fold more drug use and 5.5-fold more alcohol consumption than those not tattooed and/or pierced.…”

“…However, investigations have appointed the risk of viral infections during these procedures [2, 3, 5, 6]. More recently these practices have also been associated with risk-taking behavior [1,7].Investigations have showed variable distribution in the body modifications prevalence in adolescents, varying from 4.5% to 29% for tattooing [1,[9][10][11][12], and 4.3% to 48% to body piercing [1,7,10,11,13,14]. In the present study, 8.4% of the youths had body modifications: 3.2% tattooing and 6% body piercing other than earlobes.…”

Body Piercing and Psychopathology: A Review of the Literature

“…Only 2 publications have investigated the relationship between BP and eating disorders, with mixed results [4,20] . The findings have also been less consistent with regard to the association between BP and depressive symptoms [2,3,10,15,22] as well as suicide ideation and suicide attempts [2,4,13] .…”

“…Three large studies found that BP was related to antisocial activity in adolescents [OR = 2.6 (99% CI = 1.3-5.3) for history of truancy] [4,13,22] . Although BP was not found to be linked with the score on the Psychopathy Scale [15] , it was correlated with subclinical psychopathy, a personality construct associating impulsive thrill-seeking and callous affect [18] .…”

“…A large number of studies reported that individuals with BPs presented increased high-risk sexual behaviours [2,4,5,8,9,12,16,19,22] . Reports also suggested a significant relationship between BP and Russian roulette [11] , problem gambling [13] and alcohol-related risky behaviours [8] . Only 2 publications have investigated the relationship between BP and eating disorders, with mixed results [4,20] .…”