Home Smoking Bans Appear to Work
Kids are less apt to light up if parents are strict about no smoking

(HealthDay News) -- When parents are adamant that people don't smoke in their house, teens apparently pick up on the anti-smoking message.

Researchers have found that in homes where the parents don't smoke but allow other people to smoke, adolescents are twice as likely to experiment with cigarettes themselves, compared with teens growing up in homes with strict smoking bans. The finding was first reported in the American Journal of Public Health.

"Adolescents are faced with so many influences that contribute to smoking attitudes and behaviors, to find that a simple household rule that bans smoking in the home has a meaningful impact on smoking attitudes and behaviors is somewhat surprising," the lead author of the study, Alison Albers, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, said in a news release from the Center for the Advancement of Health.

"This basic intervention -- implementing a household smoking ban -- has the potential to promote anti-smoking norms and to prevent adolescent smoking," Albers said.

The study included interviews with more than 2,200 kids who were 12 to 17 years old at the start of the study. Four years later, the researchers checked back with the kids to assess their smoking history.

In homes with nonsmoking parents who enforced a smoking ban, teens were less likely to try cigarettes than their peers, the study found.

In homes where parents did not enforce a smoking ban, adolescents were more likely to feel that smoking was socially acceptable. These teens also indicated a belief that more adults in their town were smokers than actually were.

"These bans send a strong message to teens that it's not OK to smoke, and, in the face of so many other external factors that may influence teens to smoke -- peers, advertising -- a home smoking policy is one thing that parents can control to some extent," Mary Hrywna, manager of the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health, said in the same news release.

Such bans appear to be working. "This study provides evidence that even in a smoke-free home environment, parental behavior remains a strong influence on teen smoking attitudes and behavior," Hrywna said.

Getting teens to realize how damaging cigarettes are, however, can be difficult. Teenagers generally find it hard to comprehend health effects that might not happen for decades down the road. But more immediate reasons not to smoke, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, include:

• Bad breath
• Stained teeth
• Discolored hands or nails
• The cost -- which the academy estimates at about $1,500 a year for a pack-a-day habit
• Frequent cough
• Sore throat
• Skin changes, which might include early wrinkles
• Trouble breathing
• Getting winded
• Not having enough energy
• A smoke smell on clothes and hair
• Possible gum disease
• Fighting with parents or friends about smoking habits
• Long-term health risks, such as increased likelihood of cancer, heart disease and stroke

On the Web

To learn more about the downside of smoking, in an article that can be shared with kids, visit the Nemours Foundation.

SOURCES: HealthDay News ; Center for the Advancement of Health, news release, Aug. 13, 2008; American Academy of Family Physicians (www.familydoctor.org)
Author: Serena Gordon
Publication Date: Sept. 30, 2009
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