Teenagers from Indiana haven’t lowered their bad and harmful vices by much in the past two years, according a recent research.

Researchers observed that drug and alcohol use decreased but unfortunately the smoking rate is still up. Indiana teens declared that they get more exercise than the other teens, they don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and too many of them are very fat.

The Indiana State Department of Health dismissed the results of the 2009 youth risk behavioral study.

For example teens in grades 9 through 12 at partaking schools through Indiana answered the private survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study results are used to measure current anti-smoking programs and public health regulations, to develop new and more such programs and to display need when referring for grant funding, state health officials declared.

“The smoking cigarettes continue to be the main state problem. And not only, nutritional choices, obesity is also a very important problem in our days,” declared Dr. Gregory Larkin, state health commissioner.

So, twenty-three percent of Indiana teens argued that they had smoked a cigarette during the past month, which is up from 22 percent from the 2007 survey. The national average is 19.5 percent.

In comparison, the number of teens who had tried a cigarette declined from approximately 53 percent in 2007 to 52 percent.

Mr. Larkin argued that some states have made greater advances in attacking tobacco use than Indiana. But he is sure that increases in the state’s cigarette tax and the rising number of communities with smoking prohibitions have affected smoking rates among teens.

Making it easier to make healthy instead of unhealthy choices is the goal to reduce smoking and to get teens moving, Larkin concluded.