[Smoking in the childhood--results of the school study Berlin-Karow 1976 (author's transl)].

The smoking habits and the lung function of 369 boys and 340 girls aged 6-16 were examined in a school. The boys are beginning to smoke at the age of 9, the girls at the age of 13. 62 per cent of the children aged 16 are smoking (20 per cent of the girls and 30 per cent of the boys are smoking regularely more than 1 cigarette/day). 58 per cent of the children have a smoker in their family. Only 10 per cent of the parents have knowledge about the smoking of their child aged 12, and 59 per cent of the parents of their child aged 16. The lung function tests (ventilation, distribution, bodyplethysmography, single-breath-test, blood gases) of the healthy teen-agers dont show differences between smokers and non-smokers.