Physical activity has long been suspected as a useful tool in helping people quit smoking. The idea is to elevate the person's sense of well being and health, thereby discouraging unhealthy behavior, like smoking. It also changes the routine of smokers, so they have more breaks in the smoking behavior chain, thus addressing the conditioned responses found among smokers.
So the question then becomes, will physical activity help teenagers stop smoking? Will teenage smoking cessation rates improve if you get them jumping around, lifting weights and playing flag football? Intuitively, the answer seems kind of obvious, "Yes". But science must come along and tell us if our common sense is really that common. Here's what we find.
An article published in Pediatrics, entitled "Effects of Physical Activity on Teen Smoking Cessation" by Horn, et al, asked this very question. They didn't go to Colorado where physical activity is at its zenith. Nope, they went to the Southeastern US. And they picked a tobacco state, Virginia. Okay, what did they find?
They put kids in 3 groups: 1) provided brief cessation intervention, 2) enrolled them in a proven teen cessation program, and 3) added a physical activity module to the teen cessation program. All kids did poorest in the brief intervention group, which you'd expect.Teenagers had a greater likelihood of quitting tobacco at 6 months out, when they were enrolled in the program with the physical activity than those just enrolled in the cessation program; in particular, boys.
So I believe the answer works with what our common sense would tell us, physical activity can be a useful tool to help teenagers quit smoking, when used in an overall cessation program. So if you want to help your kids quit, get them in a quitting program that incorporates some kind of physical activity. Plus, it will help them in other areas as well.
