Dieting Teenage Girls, More Likely to Smoke

Filed in archive Cases , Studies on September 3, 2007

I have never dieted my whole life and I have always been that chubby girl in school. I first smoked when I was 18 and in college, not only because of peer pressure but because of the notion that I will lose weight if I smoke. That and because a girl who smokes is cool - so I thought.

Now, according to a new study of nearly 8,000 adolescents conducted by a research team from University of Florida, College of Medicine, teenage girls who are dieting are almost twice as likely to start smoking regularly as girls who are not dieting.

The authors found that female teens who started dieting during the study period were 1.94 times more likely to start regularly smoking than non-dieting teens, and male teens who were not dieters and who had cigarettes available at home were more likely to try smoking.

According to lead author Mildred Maldonado-Molina, Ph.D., of the University of Florida, College of Medicine:

"We were expecting that the relationship between dieting and smoking was going to be stronger among females. Our findings were consistent with previous studies examining the relationship between dieting behaviors and smoking initiation."

Teenage years are the most difficult and trying times in anybody's life. It is a time where in later in life we wished we didn't smoke, drink etc. Hopefully teenage girls (and boys) of today know better.

Find more details from Center for the Advancement of Health.