About 20% teens in America are addicted to smoking and, according to Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly one-third of teen smokers will continue with this habit and die from a smoking-related disease in the later life.

However, the teenagers can get rid of their smoking habits and avoid life-threatening diseases, says a study published in the journal Pediatrics, which found that encouraging exercise increases the odds to quit smoking in teens. American Lung Association conducted the study under its quit program “Not On Tobacco.”

Researchers chose West Virginia because exercise rate is far lower in the region and smoking problem is very high with 29% of teenagers being regular smokers. The team led by Kimberly Horn, examined the effects of exercise by offering  either a standard cessation program or standard program plus exercise or standard cessation program with “brief intervention” to students of 19 randomly assigned high schools. In all, 233 teenage students participated in the study who averaged half a pack of cigarettes on weekdays and a pack a day on weekends.

The idea for this experiment came from a past research on adults that suggested physical activity can help smokers quit by easing the withdrawal symptoms.

The standard program involved 10 small-group sessions a week, where a facilitator advised them how to quit smoking. The exercise-added program offered tips on exercise along with a pedometer to keep the track of their daily activity levels.

On completion of the six month programs, researchers noticed that the standard program with exercise had the highest self-reported quit rates, 31 percent. The standard cessation program comes second with 21% quit rate, and the version that included brief intervention had the lowest, 16% quit rate.

However, the data revealed that added physical activity only helped male teens kick the habit. Boys showed 18% quit rate in the standard program and 37% quit rate in the exercise added program. On the contrary, female smokers had similar quit rates in both the versions – 23 percent and 26 percent.

What’s more, after closely analyzing the data, Horn stated that the type and levels of physical activity influence the greater quitting success in male teens. Female’s exercise levels plummet whereas boys remain more active in the teen years.

While the second conclusion linking quitting success to type of physical exercise is only correlational, the results do make sense looking at the success rate.

Encouraging fact is that exercise has been proved to help teens quit smoking, and even after the teens quit smoking, they will keep reaping the other health benefits of exercising.