Recent scientific studies revealed that children of those who started smoking when they were very young are far more likely to start smoking than their peers, whose parents started doing so later in life or not at all. The same holds true if parents keep on smoking steadily for many years, well into adulthood. The new finds could shed some light on the intricate network of social factors that prompt more and more teens to start smoking nowadays.

"This particular study focuses more on the genetic influence in the specific case of a parent's smoking behavior impacting a teenage son or daughter's smoking. The study findings suggest that the characteristics of early onset and high levels of long-term smoking are great candidates for behavioral and molecular genetic studies of the causes of smoking and how smoking behavior is passed from one generation to the next,” explained Jon Macy, project director of the Indiana University Smoking Survey in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

 

He added that "Of course, environmental influences on adolescents such as parenting practices, availability of cigarettes in the home, and parents' attitudes about smoking are equally as important and can be addressed with effective public health interventions including family-based smoking prevention programs," in a study published in the November issue of Health Psychology.

 

Previously, researchers tried to understand exactly how responsible parents are for their children picking up smoking, but those surveys only relied on the current habits of the parents, and did not focus on their history of tobacco use. Now, the team at Indiana University also analyzed the amount of cigarettes the adults smoked, their speed of escalation, the peak of use, and also their persistence over time.

 

"This study used a more informative description of parental smoking behaviors. We've found that these descriptions might do a better job than current parental smoking status of predicting risk of their adolescent children starting to smoke," the team leader concluded.