Pick up almost any newspaper these days and you will find a headline sounding an alarm about a serious challenge facing young people today. Over the past year, dozens of articles have been published about excessive youth borrowing and spending (leading to high amounts of debt), new reactions to negative body image (such as plastic surgery), as well as more familiar risks like premarital sex and smoking. Many suggest that the media and marketing machine share much of the credit for creating or, at the least, exacerbating these problems among children and teens.<!--break-->

In Forum Focus: Revisiting Risk in the 21st Century, we explore these challenges and suggest that these “new risks” be incorporated into the prevention dialogue. In research update, we delve into the prevalence and potential impact of a range of risks. In on the ground, we examine three innovative programs in California, New York and Tennessee. In voices from the field, we interview two national experts studying this issue, Bob McCannon, executive director of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project and Juliet Schor, author of the best-selling book Born to Buy.