Risk factors for girls smoking

The answer is A. Having a boyfriend who smokes is not a risk factor causing teen girls to smoke.

However the other factors -- concern about weight, low grades, and drinking alcohol -- were among several things associated with a greater chance that a teen girl would be smoking by the time she was 18 or 19 years old, according to a recent study.

Researchers looked at data from the federally sponsored National Growth and Health study, which followed nearly 2,400 girls in Richmond, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; and the Washington, DC. area for nine years. The girls were aged 9 and 10 when the study started.

Researchers were surprised by some of the circumstances that seemed to affect girls' decision whether to smoke. Their worries about being thin were important, as were stress, having a parent with high school or less education, being from a one-parent household, drinking alcohol, poor grades in school, and behavior problems.

Because more than 3,000 teens start smoking each day, researchers hope this kind of information can be used to develop more effective smoking prevention programs.

Resources

The very cool No To Tobacco Web site has posters, resources for class papers, links to motivational speakers, and tips for teens to quit smoking.

 

June 29, 2002