Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:15 AM CST
Risky business: I Sing the Body Electric helps raise awareness of teens' risky behavior
By BETHANY CARSON, Staff Writer
Daniel Pisani, a junior at Oakland High School in Coles County, said he's seen too many of his relatives die as a result of drug abuse.
And he has seen more substance abuse among his peers, testing his tolerance.
"Apathy -- everyone around here doesn't care," he said. "You can die from it. They don't care. Drunk driving, you can kill someone. They don't care. I'd like to show them how it affects other people."
His comments come after a 2004 survey said fewer teenagers in East Central Illinois reported smoking marijuana, trying methamphetamine and riding in cars with friends who had been drinking.
Yet, Pisani and some of his peers said the behavior is still prevalent and negatively affects friends and relatives.
The 2004 results were issued by the I Sing the Body Electric program, which used questions from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. The data was pulled from 24 high schools in Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Moultrie and Shelby counties.
Overall, 80 percent of the 4,700 high school students surveyed reported I Sing the Body Electric had positively affected them.
Pisani said he's been involved in I Sing the Body Electric for four years, partially in an attempt to get people to care.
"I love to write, and I love to help people," he said, "so what better way to do that than I Sing?"
After taking the survey, students turn their reactions into art projects ranging from creative writing to glass blowing, said Oakland English teacher and program sponsor Lee Roll.
Roll said the program started with strong support from the administration, and it can work into any type of class, such as health, creative writing, drama, art or even business. It has attracted the straight-A students as well as the ones on the fringe who are creative, she said.
"You don't have to be someone who started out as a teetotaler, don't believe in this, that or the other," she said. "We have kids involved in the program -- a lot of them -- who had trouble with alcohol, drugs or sex issues. This is a way for them to come to grips with that, change their ways, understand why they did what they did."
Roll has her students research the topics before starting projects.
"I think it makes more of an impression," she said, adding they need to realize what they do now has long-term repercussions.
Junior Nikki Butler didn't need research to know she wants to help prevent drug abuse.
"I want people to know how much it affects other people when they do it," she said.
She's seen the effects on her own family.
I Sing the Body Electric, then, serves as her emotional outlet, as well as a way to teach people, she said.
Her upcoming play depicts an 18-year-old female buckling under peer pressure from a high school football player.
The experiment with acid turns into a chaotic scene and ends in loneliness. The character's sister was the only one who came through to help her recover.
"Family's always going to be there," Butler said. "Friends won't be. Family should be the first person you can count on."
Survey results showed 14 percent of the youth reported not having a trusted adult to talk to.
"It's really important to have a good relationship with your parents," Butler said. "I'm not talking about the whole Beaver Cleaver thing. Parents should let the kid know they should be able to talk to them about anything."
In her first year of I Sing, Butler said the program also allows her to address her emotions more openly.
Body image has taken a toll on her, with even magazine images triggering insecurities.
"The more you look at them, the more you see how pretty the girls are around you," she said, "and you're bigger than them. It makes you not want to eat."
In middle school, she said she'd play mind games to tell herself she wasn't hungry.
Her honesty resembles the trend that body image ranks second to alcohol in importance to youth.
The 2004 survey said four in 10 females and three of 10 males perceive themselves as slightly overweight or very overweight.
While fewer young women reported using laxatives or vomiting to control their weight, those same behaviors increased 57 percent among young men compared to two years ago.
The Oakland students said staying thin was one reason peers had abused methamphetamine, a stimulant that affects the central nervous system and can be smoked, snorted or injected.
The so-called rural drug has been the No. 1 problem in Coles County, according to the Coles County Sheriff's Department.
The I Sing 2004 report said one in 20 youths reported currently using meth. The good news is that marks a 37 percent decrease from two years ago.
Junior Nick Rice said some of his friends have tried it.
"I told them it was a bad idea," he said. "Marijuana, it's dangerous, but meth, I don't think it's a good idea."
When he told that to his friends, he said, he was ignored.
"It's that apathy thing again," Pisani said. "(They) just don't care."
Loneliness, boredom, peer pressure and curiosity were also mentioned as reasons their peers had tried drugs or alcohol.
"They feel like they don't have friends or they don't feel good about themselves, so they think they don't have anyone else to turn to," said Jessie Luttrell, a senior in her second year of I Sing the Body Electric. "It's not true, but that's what they think."
The issue still resonates among the students a year after one of their own had been reported as committing suicide by overdosing on dextromethorphan, a legal drug found in over-the-counter cold and cough medicines.
"We knew lots of people were on drugs because they talked about it," Luttrell said, "but we didn't know people would go as far. We didn't know that anybody had issues that bad that would use drugs to do something like that."
Rice said teen suicide was one issue missing from I Sing the Body Electric.
"Teen suicide has not been included," he said.
He noticed when he took the CDC survey, the questions excluded his situation when he contemplated suicide.
"You may not think about it in 30 days, but when it hits you, it hits you hard," he said. "It's like a kick in the jaw. But once again, I had my family to get me through that."
He said the subjects included in the I Sing the Body Electric program, such as body image and alcohol and drugs, all could lead to suicidal thoughts.
But "there are other things," he said, "loss of friends, loss of love."
Contact Bethany Carson at bcarson@herald-review.com or 421-6968.
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