Detailed in a journal study titled, “Health Risk Behaviors among Young Adolescents: Results from the National Study”, researchers outlined four different types of child maltreatment. These maltreatments, defined as emotional and psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect, were all demonstrated to have an association with dangerous consequential effects as these children matured. According to the researchers, physical abuse involves the use of physical means in order to cause purposeful harm to a child (Peshevska et al. 385–386). This form of child maltreatment is one of the more common ideas of corporal punishment when referred to in modern society. Sexual abuse is characterized by engaging in activity that a child does not understand, cannot give consent to or an activity that violates preexisting laws regarding sexual activity. Finally, neglect is defined as the absence of a parent or guardian’s appropriate attention when it was available to the child (Peshevska et al. …show more content…
According to an article titled, “Association between Physical Abuse, Physical Neglect and Health Risk Behaviours among Young Adolescents: Results from the National Study”, researchers discovered that being exposed to corporal punishment at a young age “increased the likelihood of being a smoker [by] about 1.5 times. (Peshevska 386-387)” The study also reported that children are about one time more likely to abuse other substances as a result of physical neglect. What is most interesting about these data results is not so much the confirmation of the negative impact of corporal punishment but the increased likelihoods of becoming a smoker and abusing other substances. While the results and conclusions can be mostly limited to the sample size of the study, if these statistics hold true on a much larger scale, these statistics are