Smoking around your toddler could be just as bad as smoking while pregnant

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/uom-say061815.php

Public Release: 21-Jun-2015
University of Montreal

Children whose parents smoked when they were toddlers are likely to have a wider waist and a higher BMI by time they reach ten years of age, reveal researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte Justine Research Centre. "We suspect the statistics we've established linking childhood obesity to exposure to parents' smoking may underestimate the effect due to parents under reporting the amount they smoked out of shame," explained Professor Linda Pagani, who led the study. "By the age of ten, the children who had been intermittently or continuously exposed to smoke were likely to have waists that were up to three-fifths of an inch wider than their peers. And their BMI scores were likely to be between .48 and .81 points higher. This prospective association is almost as large as the influence of smoking while pregnant." Worldwide, 40% of children are exposed to secondhand smoke in their own homes.

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