Young teens who receive "sexts" are more likely to report having had sex, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Southern California found that middle school students who engage in sexually explicit text messaging are six times more likely to report being sexually active, according to a recent study.

"These findings call attention to the need to train health educators, pediatricians and parents on how best to communicate with young adolescents about sexting in relation to sexual behavior," Eric Rice, assistant professor at the USC School of Social Work, said in a statement. "The sexting conversation should occur as soon as the child acquires a cell phone."

For the study, researchers anonymously sampled more than 1,300 middle school students in Los Angeles as part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Researchers defined sext in their survey as a sexually suggestive text or photo.

The researchers found that even when controlling for sexting behaviors, young teens who sent more than 100 texts a day were more likely to report being sexually active.

They also found that Young teens who texted more than 100 times a day were more than twice as likely to have received a sext and almost 4.5 times more likely to report having sent a sext.

"Our results show that excessive, unlimited or unmonitored texting seems to enable sexting," Rice said. "Parents may wish to openly monitor their young teen's cell phone, check in with them about who they are communicating with, and perhaps restrict their number of texts allowed per month."

The research team acknowledges that despite anonymity, the data is self-reported and thus subject to social desirability bias, as well as limitations for geographic area and the diverse demographics of Los Angeles.

The findings were recently published in the July 2014 issue of the journal Pediatrics.