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Excerpts from: Parents Who Quit Smoking When Their Children Are Young Reduce the Chances of Their Kids Becoming Teen Smokers

By AScribe News [05/07/03]

New findings from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center may provide a compelling reason for smoking parents of young children to kick the habit. Researchers have found that parents who quit smoking before their child reaches third grade will significantly reduce their child's odds of becoming a smoker by the time their senior year of high school rolls around. Specifically, if one parent quits by the time the child is 8 or 9, the child's odds of being a daily or monthly smoker at age 17 or 18 decrease by 25 percent. If both parents quit, the child's chances of smoking drop by nearly 40 percent, according to Jonathan B. Bricker and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson and the University of Washington, who report their findings in the May issue of the journal Addiction, a publication of the United Kingdom-based Society for the Study of Addiction.