Lose weight is a major reason that teenage girls take up smoking

Published on July 4, 2008 8:03 AM

Researchers found that teenagers especially girls are starting to smoke in the hope of losing weight.

According to a recent study teenage girls dieting during the two-year study were almost twice more likely to take up smoking than those not dieting. Health researchers reported that teenage boys also turned to cigarettes after attempting and failing at dieting.

A Canadian study suggested that smoking cigarettes won't help teenage girls lose weight, but it may stunt teen boys' growth. The study said the effect on boys' heights may be because they are still growing when they start to smoke.

One in four girls said that smoking made them less hungry and that they used smoking "instead of eating". Although many reported that they would be healthier and it would please their parents if they gave up, the fear of eating more and putting on weight prevented them from stopping.

Girls were up to three times more likely to smoke if they were postmenarchal-possibly because they perceived their normal bodily changes as fatness. Girls who drank alcohol were about seven times more likely to be smokers than those who didn't. Smoking was most common in overweight, rather than normal or very overweight, girls. Smoking was associated with weight loss: many smokers reported a postmenarchal weight loss of 7 kg or more.

Janan Less, community health consultant for the Scott County Health Department, said she thinks the increase in teenage girls smoking is linked to high obesity rates and girls looking to tobacco to lose weight.

The theory is that smoking distracts people from eating and helps curb appetites.

Ms. Less said: "I think there's a social norm change with tobacco and it's not socially acceptable now with all the information and knowledge we have."

Scientists reported that teenage girls take up smoking not only because they feel too fat but they are also frightened of losing control of their eating. More worrying too is the fact that they are using cigarettes as a way of controlling their weight and trading pounds off their weight for years off their life.

Statistics show that half of long-term smokers die of a smoking-caused disease, with the majority having started smoking in adolescence.