Progeria isn't one of those diseases that gets the pomp and circumstance. There are no ribbons or pink whoosies to draw attention to the genetic condition that makes a child age at such a rapid rate that they're only expected to live into the teen years. But they do have Hana Hwang, viral video star and 13-year-old progeria patient with an amazing attitude.

Hwang first made national news back in late 2011 when Ryan Seacrest arranged for her favorite singer, fellow teen Selena Gomez, to visit her in the hospital. But it's the video Hana made later, a tribute to her idol, that could change the way the world looks at childhood disease:

You probably have one food that you absolutely adore above all other foods. Maybe you've even said, "I could live on (insert name of favorite food) for the rest of my life." And yet, I'm going to bet that the daily diet of chicken nuggets consumed by 17-year-old Stacey Irvine would turn your stomach.

Parents! It's one thing to have a picky toddler. It's another thing to have a 17-year-old trying to live on a diet consisting of one (not terribly healthy) food. At least the little ones are still learning. The big ones should have figured it out by now.

And yet, it was kind of inevitable that some teenager was going to end up in the hospital and all over the news like this, wasn't it?

A New York state-funded safe sex campaign is under fire for being too "racy." The web series, posted on Vimeo.com last month, is called "More Than Just Sex" and features five PSAs starring teen actors. The videos aim to "empower young people to make positive decisions, create social change, and reduce the rates of teen pregnancy, STD's and HIV." But some critics are picking on the spicy terms used in the PSAs -- like "raw dogging" and "baby mama drama" -- claiming they're over the top. But I'm sure that's not what they really want or mean to say.

More than anything, I'm sure the bone they have to pick with the campaign is based on the mere fact that it's a government-funded campaign for safe sex (read: NOT abstinence-only education). $15K of government money went to filming these PSAs. Those opposed to them likely have a problem with the state spending precious tax dollars on teaching teens about sex at all. But that's too bad.

The whole world is talking about Ben Breedlove today. And rightfully so . . . I guess. Breedlove is the 18-year-old with a serious heart condition who posted a video online just this month detailing his three experiences with death during childhood. . . only to die on Christmas Day. His videos let us know that Ben wasn't afraid anymore.

But I don't want to talk about Ben. OK, I lied. I do want to talk about Ben, but not because the Austin, Texas teen is an inspiration to all of us struggling in this cruel, cruel world, terrified of the day when it will all be over. I want to talk about Ben because he was the child of Shawn and Deanne Breedlove and brother of Ally and Jake.

There's a sad new trend emerging among teens, and it looks especially harmful for girls. A new study of Boston teenage girls shows that one out of 13 of them had participated in group sex -- and more than half of them said it was "nonconsensual." In other words, they were raped.

Worse, in half of these encounters the guys didn't wear condoms, and in a third said drugs were involved to incompacitate the victims. The average age of the girls was 15. That's so depressing! Is this what we want our daughters' first sexual encounter to be like? Do we really want our sons doing this to other girls? The study makes me wonder if we need to change the way we talk with our kids about sex.

It hits the press at least once a year, and for a few days, the topical spotlight shines bright on hazing.

Some poor kid, desperate to be inducted into one organization or another, gets beaten senseless or is caught doing something foolish or finds themselves injured — sometimes badly — trying to get through the requirements of membership or just be accepted. This time, it was Florida A&M’s drum major Robert Champion, who died in November after his bandmates found him unresponsive.

In the aftermath, four students have been kicked out of the school and the band’s director, Julian White, has been suspended while administrators at FAMU investigate the incident. It wouldn’t be the first time the band was cited for hazing. 

Here we go again. Another survey of teenagers shows they're all a hot mess who think plastic surgery would fix them right up. Well, OK, 25 percent of them would go under the knife: specifically in order to look like the hotties they see on TV. Quelle horreur! Our babies are going to hades in a handbasket. Quick, grab the remote!

Or, you know, grab yourself a little dose of something called reality and drink right up. Let me give this to you straight: hearing that kids want plastic surgery shouldn't surprise you in the least. And it's not all about the idiot box in your living room. It's just their age.

Would you want your kid to be eating lunch at 9:30 a.m.?

Yeah, me neither. But it turns out that's the reality for some kids, including those who go to several Florida schools.

There ought to be a law, you say? Well, in fact, there is: It's federally mandated that school lunches be served between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. And while even the extreme ends of that four-hour window seem less than ideal to me, some schools apparently find that the window isn't wide enough, and get waivers to serve kids lunches as early as 8:30 a.m.

8:30 a.m.!