Smoking Will Not Keep you Slender

A new master’s thesis suggests that concern for obesity does not provide a valid reason to continue smoking; in fact, it might even be a reason to quit.

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in western countries in the last decades, while cigarette smoking has concomitantly decreased. Smoking has traditionally been associated with lower relative body mass index (BMI) but high abdominal obesity, as represented by waist-hip ratio (WHR). However, since several recent studies have suggested that BMI is higher among today’s smokers than among non-smokers, a researcher at the Nordic School of Public Health (NHV; Gothenburg, Sweden) set out to examine whether the relationship between smoking and BMI and WHR has changed over time.

To do so, data were collected from 5,907 male and female residents of Gothenburg (Sweden), aged 25-65 years; they were drawn randomly in four sequential cross-sections (1985, 1990, 1995, and 2002) from the city’s population register. General linear models were used to test trends over time, adjusted for age differences. The results showed a higher WHR in both male and female smokers compared with nonsmokers. BMI was lower in female smokers compared with female nonsmokers, but did not differ significantly between male smokers and male nonsmokers. Among female participants, differences in WHR between smokers and nonsmokers increased significantly throughout the study; and although male participants showed a similar tendency, the differences were not significant. Adjustment for educational level did not affect the results.

“Only among females was there an inverse relationship between smoking and BMI, and this difference appeared to decrease throughout the study,” concluded thesis author MPH student Lisa Webb. “Among males, there was no significant difference between smokers ‘and never-smokers’ BMI. This was a noteworthy finding, since several Nordic studies have found that BMI increased more quickly among male smokers than among male never-smokers.”

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Nordic School of Public Health