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BY JING LIU

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Want your kid to quit smoking? A new study has a high-impact solution. Here is HLN.

“Exercise can help teenage boys kick the smoking habit, but it does nothing for girls, that’s from a new study funded by the CDC. ”

A team at the West Virginia Prevention Center began the study in October 2009. International Business Times has the details.

“The study involved 233 teens aged 14 to 19 from West Virginia…Those who participated in a smoking cessation program combined with exercise were on average up to three times more likely to quit smoking than those who were provided only minimal stop-smoking counseling.”

Exercise is, of course, good for health. But how does it get teens to kick the habit?

According to News Medical, researchers don’t know the reason either, but predict exercise contributes both physically and mentally.

“Exercise can build feelings of self-efficacy, and make teens feel like they can change their behavior. It also causes the release of lactic acid from the muscles and endorphins, which can replace some of those internal reinforcers that come from smoking.”

But a blogger from the Village Voice doesn’t agree with this cause-effect analysis.

“No, it's not endorphins, and it's not lactic acid… let's say you're in this program where they're making you exercise instead of hanging out under the bleachers with your friends after school…. Eventually, wheezing through all the runs and soccer games will no longer be worth it so you'll start to smoke less and less.”

But the caveat is that teen girls are left out. The study doesn’t show exercise works for them. Why? Clinical Advisor has the researchers’ guess.

“‘It is possible that the physical activity adjunct, rather than physical activity itself, was more culturally suitable for boys than for girls...’”'

Transcript by Newsy.