Although there have been any number of health warnings directed at youth, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that teens take their risk of premature death from smoking-related diseases far too lightly.

"As long as young people fail to appreciate the risks of smoking, they will endanger their health and create an addiction that they will regret having started," said study author Dr. Daniel Romer.

Romer and colleague Patrick Jamieson conducted a nationwide survey of 300 smokers and 300 nonsmokers aged 14 to 22. Even among youth who believed 60 percent of adult smokers would die from smoking-related causes (actually an overestimation), just one in four considered their own smoking to be "very risky."

Furthermore, of the teens who were aware that about half of all smokers die from smoking-related causes, 50 percent regarded their own smoking as only somewhat risky, a little risky, or not risky at all.

"Indeed, one challenge for antismoking campaigns is overcoming the tendency of young people to underestimate the risk of their own smoking while overestimating the ease of quitting," wrote Romer and Jamieson.

The study is published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

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