Teen boys who started smoking recently are more likely to drop the habit than teen girls.
Researchers looked at 620 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 13 who had recently started smoking, HealthDay reported.
About 40 percent of these individuals said their parents smoked and about 90 percent had friends who smoked. Eighty-percent of the study subjects said they saw their teachers and members of the school staff smoking.
Over the course of the five-year-long study 40 percent of the subjects quit smoking. The team found that the teen boys were 80 percent more likely to quit than teen girls; older teens were also 30 percent more likely to quit than younger ones.
Teens who said the warning labels on cigarettes frightened them were 44 percent more likely to quit and the subjects that played team sports were also 40 percent more likely to quit.
"Overall, these results support that healthy family habits, which include nonsmoking as the norm as well as positive exchange and functioning, will help novice smokers discontinue smoking," study author Jennifer O'Loughlin, a professor in the department of social and preventive medicine at the University of Montreal, said, HealthDay reported.
"Parents who smoke should understand the effects of their smoking on their children, and families should work together or with professionals to identify and reduce sources of family stress. Parents should engage their children in sports and other healthy activities," she said.
Other factors that influenced whether or not the teen subjects quit included family stress, intensity of cravings, weight, and other drug use, HealthDay reported.
"It is imperative that we better understand the factors that promote smoking discontinuation in girls compared with boys, so that we can design gender-specific interventions," O'Loughlin said.
The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
