Adolescent girls keen to be thin are four times as likely to become smokersApril 23, 2003Adolescent girls who are keen to be thin are four times as likely to become established smokers, reveals research in Tobacco Control. Conversely, young women who are not bothered about their weight, are less likely to take up the habit, the study indicates. The findings are based on a telephone survey in 1993 of 273 girls aged between 12 and 15. The girls, all resident in Massachusetts, USA, were selected at random. They were asked to rate the value they put on being thin themselves, using a score of 0 to 10, where 0 is "not at all important," and 10 is "extremely important." They were subsequently surveyed again four years later to see who had become a regular smoker. The first survey revealed that around one in eight was overweight, but almost three quarters (70%) of the young women had tried to diet. Yet most of them (80%) did not believe that smoking was a way of keeping weight off. By the time of the second survey, almost one in four girls (23%) had become an established smoker, defined for the purposes of the study as having smoked 100 or more cigarettes to date. A high value placed on thinness seemed to predict who would become a smoker. Of those who eventually progressed to smoking, just 7% considered thinness to be unimportant, scored as 0 and 4 on the first survey. This compares with 93% of the young women who did not go on to become smokers. Those rating thinness as moderately important, with a score of 5 to 7, made up almost one in four of the eventual smokers, while those scoring it as extremely important numbered almost 30% of this group. The opposite trend was seen among the eventual non-smokers. When the figures were applied to the likelihood of becoming a smoker, those who considered being thin to be moderately important were over three times as likely to take up the habit, while those who considered it very important were over four times as likely to do so. These findings were not explained by other obvious influential factors, such as weight, depression, or the belief that smoking can be used in weight control. The authors suggest that the preoccupation with being thin may propel a young woman into a "larger constellation of unhealthy behaviours," to include dieting and smoking. British Medical Journal (BMJ) |
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