Jump to full article: Reuters, 2009-08-26
Intro: Friends and parents have a strong influence over whether teenagers move from experimenting with cigarettes to becoming full-fledged smokers -- but so do parents, a new study finds.
The study, which followed 270 teenagers who had become occasional smokers before high school, found that 58 percent made it a daily habit by 12th grade.
But the likelihood of that happening depended partly on friends and parents, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics.
"We found that parents play an important role in preventing teens' smoking escalation from experimental to daily smoking," Dr. Min Jung Kim, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said.
When friends or parents smoked, teens were more likely to become daily smokers.
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