Parental smoking enhances the liklihood of their teens smoking

Both my parents smoked when I was growing up and neither I nor any of my other 4 siblings became smokers. However, a study published in the February, 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics found that kids 12 - 17 are more likely to smoke if their parents smoke and the tendency is increased if both parents smoke as compared to just one. Here is a brief snippet from the article:

Parental smoking was associated with a significantly higher risk of smoking initiation in adolescent offspring. In addition, the likelihood of offspring smoking initiation increased with the number of smoking parents and the duration of exposure to parental smoking, suggesting a dose-response relationship between parental smoking and offspring smoking. Offspring of parents who had quit smoking were no more likely to smoke than offspring of parents who had never smoked. The effects of parental smoking on offspring initiation differed by sex (with a stronger effect of fathers' smoking on boys than girls), developmental period (with a stronger effect of parental smoking before the adolescent was age 13 than afterward), and residence of parents (with effects of fathers' smoking being dependent on living in the same household as the adolescent). Parental smoking was also associated with stronger negative reactions to adolescents' first cigarette, a potential marker of the risk of progression to higher levels of use.

You can read the whole article by clicking here.

An additional concern about smoking is that it is also predictive of other substance abuse, so cigarettes are considered a gateway drug in our current society.

At GCASA we offer smoking cessation services to our clients who would like to stop smoking and we work hard to prevent smoking to begin with with programs such as Smoke Free NOW.