NEW YORK, Aug 04 (Reuters) -- Many teenage girls smoke in the belief that it helps prevent weight gain, researchers report.
"Such concerns may reinforce and perpetuate smoking despite clear awareness of the health risks," concludes a study of nearly 2,800 British and Canadian schoolgirls published in the current issue of the Postgraduate Medical Journal.
Researchers at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, England, and two hospitals in Ottawa, Canada, presented 10- to-17-year-old schoolgirls with two detailed questionnaires focusing on their attitudes towards either smoking or weight gain.
They discovered that "anxieties about body weight and shape regulation, the feeling of being too fat, and the fear of losing control of eating, may be important forces at work in sustaining cigarette smoking amongst teenage girls." Patterns were similar between girls in both countries.
Smoking incidence peaked among 15-years-olds, according to the study. The authors found that girls who rated themselves as either "too fat" or "prone to overeating" were 30% more likely to smoke, compared with girls who did not express such fears. Likewise, young women who said they had lost more than 7 kilograms (about 15 pounds) since puberty were 70% more likely to be smokers than girls with less dramatic weight fluctuations. Finally, the researchers note that girls who admitted to at least occasional bulimia were 80% more likely to smoke than girls without such histories.
Previous studies of young women have revealed that concerns about weight gain typically surface soon after puberty. This trend was echoed in the London/Ottawa study, which found that girls who had already commenced menstruation were 2.5 times more likely to smoke than prepubescent girls.
Drinking and smoking were also closely linked -- in fact, girls were more than 7 times as likely to smoke if they were also regular drinkers. The investigators believe this reflects the fact that, for many teenagers on both sides of the Atlantic, "cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption often go together in social settings."
The vast majority (over 80%) of the girls told researchers they were well aware that quitting smoking would make them "more healthy." But about a third also worried that kicking their habit might mean they would subsequently "eat more" or "put on weight."
The authors say weight-conscious girls may learn early that weight control can be, indeed, one of the few socially "desirable" side-effects of smoking. "Smoking among older women has been found to be associated with relative thinness," the researchers point out, "...a possibility that may not have been overlooked by observant teenage girls as well as by the tobacco industry."
They believe future antismoking efforts aimed at teenage girls should be designed with this primary, but often overlooked, motivation in mind.
SOURCE: Postgraduate Medical Journal 1998;74:473-479.
