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Children exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to face weight and metabolic issues, according to a new study from researchers at the Université de Montréal, which concludes that smoking around young children may be just as harmful as smoking while pregnant.

Lead author Linda Pagani, a professor of psycho-education at U de M and a researcher at the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine, found that children whose parents smoked when they were toddlers were more likely to have a thicker waist and a higher body mass index (BMI) by the time they reached the age of 10.

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She says some 40 per cent of children are exposed either sporadically or continuously to second-hand smoke in their own homes and that, by the age of 10, the children who had been 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.