While no one can really pinpoint exactly where the act of spanking came from exactly, one thing is for sure: it's been up for debate for a very long time. At one time, corporal punishment was the norm in schools all across the country and is now strictly banned, but sometimes still occurs in homes. No matter what your personal beliefs are on the subject, there is no denying how this subject brings up extremely mixed feelings from parents everywhere. A new analysis recently published shares that youth around the world are less violent where corporal punishment is banned - and it's definitely something worth thinking about.

The analysis was published earlier this week in the BMJ Journal, after looking at 88 countries, territories and protectorate states - so it was not just United States based. While many believe that corporal punishment helps to keep children in line and not running wild, the research is actually showing the exact opposite.

This study is said to be one of the largest done on the subject to date, using data from two ongoing global surveys, the Health Behavior in School-aged Children and the Global School-based Health survey. To do this, they interviewed kids ages 13 to 17 about various health and social topics including sexual behavior, alcohol, drug and tobacco use, and violence. One of the main questions being if the child was involved in a physical fight in the last year. The researchers considered four fights within that time period to be frequent altercations.

Of the countries involved in this analysis, 30 had full bans on corporal punishment (meaning at home and school), while 38 had partial bans (including the United States). "Boys in countries with a full ban showed 69% the rate of fighting found in countries with no ban," said Frank Elgar, lead study author and associate professor in the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University in Montreal. "In girls, the gap was even larger, with 42% the rate of fighting found in countries with no ban."

One of the main reasons that this analysis was conducted to begin with was because of the continued use of spanking in the United States. many people in America believe that it's not an issue and in fact a necessary part of child rearing. Instead, this models this type of behavior to children and have found that they also experience academic problems in schools and cognitive deficits and were more likely to be violent toward women later in life.

READ NEXT: Dad Offers To 'Help' Parents By Giving Kids 'Free' Spankings