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Study: Young Love Is Not So Innocent

By Medical Editor Dr. Brian McDonough

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A disturbing report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about young dating and it's not puppy love.

According to their study of 7th graders, researchers suggest that these children experience what authors are calling surprising levels of dating abuse and violence. 33-percent of students say they were subjected to psychological dating violence and one in six experience physical violence.

"It is what we call bi-directional, meaning that this is not only boy on girl violence. It's also girl on boy violence," Kristin Schubert with the Robert Wood Johnson foundation tells CBS News the results came as a shock. "We didn't expect either that so many of them were dating and that some of them are experiencing violence at this young of an age."

Nearly half of the students say have been victim of sexual harassment.

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