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NEW YORK - If your teens watch "Sex and the City," the sex isn't the only thing you have to worry about.
Virtually every teen girl interviewed as part of a new New York Health Department report on smoking said the show influenced their deadly habit.
"Whenever I think of how to smoke it's the way Sarah Jessica Parker exhales, and I'm like obsessed," one 10th-grader said. "I love her and the way she exhales is very memorable. She kind of ... elongates her neck and exhales into the air."
About 11 percent of teenagers smoke, according to the Health Department. The highest rates, about 35 percent, are among white girls.
Researchers ventured into a private high school and asked more than 30 middle and high school girls between the ages of 13 and 18 about smoking.
"Because smoking is a decision-making process at that age, we thought it would be interesting and important to find out how decisions get made," said Elizabeth Kilgore, a research scientist at the Health Department. "This does not represent all teenaged girls but it's one more piece of the puzzle."
Some of the girls said they smoke because they think it makes them look sophisticated while others say it helps them deal with stress. Some are afraid to stop because they think they will gain weight.
Kilgore said researchers were surprised to see how many girls viewed smoking as an accessory of sorts.
"It just goes with everything, you know, your perfectly polished hands," said an 11th-grader who smokes.
On the other hand, some of the girls said there was peer pressure to stay away from smoking.
One of the things all the girls - smokers and nonsmokers alike - agreed on was that they didn't want to preached to by adults about the issue.
"It's better for it to come from other kids," said a ninth-grader who doesn't smoke. "You don't want stupid videos about like peer pressure and stuff. You just need something that's not fake."
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(c) 2006, New York Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
