June 16th, 2008
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Smoking stunts boys, but doesn't slim girls
Sharon Kirkey, Winnipeg Free Press, March 25, 2008
Smoking doesn't make teenage girls thinner but it will make boys shorter and skinnier, new Canadian research confirms.
In a finding that appears to prove, at least for boys, that mothers were right -- smoking will stunt your growth -- researchers who followed nearly 1,300 Montreal-area adolescents for five years found that a boy who smokes 10 cigarettes a day from age 12 to 17, or all through high school, will end up about an inch shorter than boys who don't smoke.
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