Smoking makes teenage girls fat - but it may take 10 years to happen.

A new study in the American Journal of Public Health followed more than 4,200 twins from age 16 to their mid 20s. The women in the study who smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day as teenagers were 2.5 times more likely to be overweight in their twenties than were non-smoking girls. The effect did not hold true for boys.

"My hunch is that women are more likely to smoke for weight control in adolescence," said the study's lead author, Professor Sherry Pagoto of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "When people quit, they start snacking during those times they used to be smoking."

Labels: weight_gain, smoking

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Teenage girls who smoke do not weigh less than those who abstain, according to a new study from the University of Montreal.

Dr. Jennifer O'Laughlin and her team tracked 1,293 teenagers for five years through a series of questionnaires. She said they were surprised at their own results, because they too had bought into the myth that smoking is a good way to control weight.

Labels: girls, smoking, heath

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