Do you beg your teenager to go to sleep earlier so he or she can function in the morning? Well, it turns out they physically can’t do that, explains Marvin Wang, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, who’s on a mission to make middle and high schools start later in the day.  Also, why adolescent brain development is the culprit behind so much bad (and sometimes law-breaking) decision-making and reckless behavior. And, a sex therapist talks about how Internet porn can sabotage a teenager’s ability to have a normal romantic relationship.

Your hosts are Carey Goldberg and Rachel Zimmerman, former national newspaper reporters and co-producers of WBUR’s CommonHealth blog. Each episode of The Checkup features a different topic—previous topics included college mental health, sex problems, the Insanity workout, and vaccine issues.

The Checkup podcast is produced at WBUR by George Hicks.

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Carey Goldberg is the co-host of WBUR’s CommonHealth blog, and a former Boston bureau chief of the New York Times.

 

Rachel Zimmerman is the co-host of WBUR’s CommonHealth blog, and a former health care reporter at the Wall Street Journal.