I never smoked. Oh, I puffed on probably three cigarettes over the course of my life, and in my callow youth I would occasionally light up a cigar. But I was always very leery of getting hooked. This was due in no small part to my dad, who was a smoker until about eight or nine years ago; during my childhood, he told me repeatedly that he didn’t want to smoke, but that he was addicted, and that he wished he’d never started. That left an impression on me, and since I didn’t want all of the health risks of smoking, like lung cancer and heart disease, I figured it was a bad idea to start.
Alas, not all kids are like me. Some actually start smoking, and some continue to smoke into adulthood. How to scare kids into not smoking is a perennial topic, never mind that we’ve pretty much won that battle. Now, Finnish researchers have a new weapon in the war on smoking: shame.
No, not shame of smoking — silly! No, the researchers suggest fat shaming! Because no matter the behavior, it’s always a good idea to threaten that it will make you fat in the end:
Telling teenage would-be smokers that lighting up may make them fat down the road may be a more effective deterrent than harping on the risks of heart disease and cancer from smoking, hints research published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
Well, this must be a study of teens’ attitudes about smoking and fat, right? Of course not — the study doesn’t appear to say anything about whether telling teens they’ll gain weight if they smoke is a more effective deterrent than telling teens they’ll die of lung cancer. I suspect that’s because it isn’t a bigger deterrent.
But at least the study shows that there’s a serious weight gain involved, right?
In a study, Finnish researchers found that smoking during adolescence strongly predicted the development of abdominal obesity in adulthood, among both men and women.
In particular, they found that girls who smoked at least 10 cigarettes daily during adolescence had a 3.4-centimeter larger waistline as young adults, on average, than did girls who had never smoked.
3.4 whole centimeters? Shocking! That’s almost one and one-third inches! Why, ex-smokers must weigh five or six pounds more than non-smokers!
[…]
“And most interesting,” said Saarni, the apparent link between smoking during adolescence and being heavy later on was independent of the young person’s own body weight — meaning that those who were heavy smokers had greater waist circumference even within the same body mass index (BMI) levels as their non-smokers peers.
Oh, crikey, can we just stop now? Guess what — ex-smokers have a tendency to gain some weight. That’s due to a lot of things — nicotine is a mild stimulant, ex-smokers often eat a bit more to replace the behavior of sucking on a cigarette, whatever — but it’s not exactly a news flash. My dad gained some weight when he quit smoking; so what? He also avoided going down the path of my grandpa, who died of lung cancer. I think he made the right choice.
At any rate, ex-smokers tend to be slightly heavier than people who never smoked. Are there health risks involved in this? Or, you know, anything that anyone should be concerned about?
This research, Saarni added, “gives a tool” to highlight the risks of smoking to adolescents and young adults “by showing the unhealthy effect on the body shape.” This can be an important deterrent, “because usually young people find cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes or even cancer so distant risks that they have very little impact on ones smoking behavior.”
Yeah, because the kid who thinks she’s invulnerable to a heart attack is going to worry that smoking can make her weigh up to ten pounds more than she otherwise would.
I mean, really, is this going to sell? “If you start smoking, you’re at risk for cancer and heart disease, and you’ll die early — oh, and if you quit, you might gain a few pounds.”
That won’t work. What I just did was convince my hypothetical teen smoker never to quit smoking, because, you know, he might gain a few pounds, which is terrible because there is nothing worse than being fat. Because, you know, there just isn’t. It’s enough to make me want to start smoking.
“That won’t work. What I just did was convince my hypothetical teen smoker never to quit smoking, because, you know, he might gain a few pounds, which is terrible because there is nothing worse than being fat. Because, you know, there just isn’t. It’s enough to make me want to start smoking.”
Exactly. In fact, when I was a kid I remember somebody (at least one somebody) recommending smoking as way of losing weight. Smoking instead of eating. Perverse and true. Fortunately I never did more smoking than you, Jeff, described above.
Meanwhile, although I abhor the idea of promoting the idea of gaining weight as a taking up smoking deterrent, I do agree that you have to meet kids where they are.
If they’re not afraid of cancer, et al, find something they can get a handle on (so to speak). As an 11 year old I remember seeing on the refridgerator of my mom’s friend’s house – who was constantly trying to quit smoking – an untouched close-up photograph of a woman smoking a cigarette. Her skin was dull, gray and wrinkled and she was probably only 40 or 50 years old. Emblazoned across it the legend: SMOKING IS GLAMOROUS.
If the wiast is bigger in smokers, maybe that’s where the tar really winds up?
What if it turns out that smoking by thin parents results in a fat kid, or a fat adult child of said parents?
I recall those posters. At least the one with the stubbled bum in the shadows lighting up and “Smoking is very sophisticated.” Me, I always found it so disgusting that there was no question of me ever starting, even with pot.
You’re right, you’ve got to meet them where they are…how to do this and at the same time defuse the weight hysteria, that’s a question.
I’ve wondered why there isn’t more emphasis on how much older smoking can make people’s skin look.
OK so if you DO start smoking kids, don’t quit because then you’ll be fat. Just keep on smoking because, well, being fat is just the worst thing in the whole wide world.
Actually, it may be worth a try. Many teens seem to be obssessed with how they look, and something that threatens their ideal body image may have an impact. I have to agree about the health arguments, although there is certainly an image case to be made with diabetes because it increases your risks of gum disease, leading to higher incidence of caries, tooth loss and a host of other health issues. But a focused health-only message doesn’t seem likely to have an impact.
– Charles Martin, DDS
Founder, Dentistry For Diabetics
i don’t know how effective scare tactics are anyway. but i remember as a kid i didn’t want to smoke because i would constantly hear my dad hacking up strangled coughs every day. oh, and thanks to his chain-smoking, i now have asthma and have nightmares where i can’t breathe. maybe kids should just have to experience not-breathing, and hearing a relative cough up a lung. oh, and my dad still smokes. he’s been chain-smoking since he was fifteen. i’m surprised he hasn’t been hospitalized.
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Actually, it may be worth a try. Many teens seem to be obssessed with how they look, and something that threatens their ideal body image may have an impact.
So, further reinforcing fat phobia and discrimination and demonization of fat people is okay, so long as it discourages kids from lighting up? What benefit is it to dissuade kids from smoking only for them to develop disordered eating habits or an eating disorder?
Oh, I remember those “smoking is very glamorous” posters. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were completely responsible for my ill-considered choice to take up the habit at the age of eighteen, but they were certainly a contributing factor. Every time I saw one of those obnoxious posters, I wanted to become a smoker.
If there’d been a campaign underway to tell me that I’d be not only unglamorous and unfashionable, but also ::gasp:: FAT if I smoked, I probably would have taken it up years earlier.
Hey, thanks Elkins. That was good for a laugh!
So much for my earnest 11 year old self.
Seriously, though, I doubt I ever would have taken up smoking, dorky posters or no. I’ve always been very sensitive to smoke, fumes, perfumes, etc. Those two or three cigs I smoked were a few years into college, when the f*ck-you factor finally kicked in…and then quickly died once I made my schoolmates see I wasn’t entirely a goody-two-shoes…throwing caution to the wind, etc.
Meanwhile, yeah, I totally get your impulse to defy proscriptions against smoking, ESPECIALLY if one of the side effects is getting fat. The only other thing I have to say about that is – Ooooo, really? Oops, too late! I’m already fat!
ok, I haven’t read the study, but my first thought was that there might be a correlation, but not necessarily a causal connection. In Europe (I am from the netherlands) and in the US as well, smoking is a highly classed activity/addiction: it’s more prevalent among those members of the lower and lower middle class – among whom obesity is also more prevalent due to different life styles/nutrition patterns. if this research is not done in an experimental setting (and I doubt it), I wouldn’t be suprised that the results of this study loose their significance if the researchers control for socio-economic back ground variables such as income level (of parents) and educational level..
Are you seriously saying that fat people smoke as much or more than thin people? You must be joking.
I did not say that, and I know I am risking to be called fatphobic.. or classist. I am sorry if I offended you. But:
I was not saying that fat people smoke more than thin people – I was saying that on a statistical level, both correlate with socio-economic background. The relationship between obesity and smoking may not be causal, but rather, they may both be (partially) caused or influenced by another factor, such as socio-economic background. If the researchers find larger sizes among those who smoke, it does not necessarily mean that smoking makes your waist expand. It could also be the case that having slightly larger waists makes people more prone to smoke (something I do not really believe), or that smoking and having a larger waist size are both the results of something else, for instance, diffferent life styles that correlate with class, which would be the third external factor.
by the way: waist size, the study said, was independent of BMI, i.e., it’s not that smokers are fatter, but that they have larger waist sizes, which means that the same weight is distributed differently among smokers and non-smokers: something may phsyically be happening, as the study implies, but these differences, again, may be due to differences in exercise pattersn between classes. In the Netherlands at least, making sure one gets regular exercise etc. is still a classed concern: only relatively well to do people can afford both the time to exercise and the money it takes to join a sports club, or gym, or whatever.
In sum: I objected to the studies causal claim, i.e., that smoking necessarily causes larger waist sizes whereas both may be caused by a different factor which is not, as far as I know, mentioned or controlled for.
Ferwale,
I see I did sound snappy, it was more a snort at linking fat with smoking via income levels, It was not meant against you personally, so I apologize if you felt personally under attack!
waist size, the study said, was independent of BMI, i.e., it’s not that smokers are fatter, but that they have larger waist sizes, which means that the same weight is distributed differently among smokers and non-smokers:
Exactly, appears they are pretending that what they describe as ‘central obesity’; having a fat gut, is the same as being fat all over.
Their ‘may make them fat down the road ‘ warning is therefore misleading.
The link between smoking and ‘central obesity’ is apparently something to do with it’s effect on insulin , it’s also possible that it is disruptive to the balance of gut bacteria, something that is sometimes linked with being fat.
As for the link between low income and fatness, I skeptical of the bluntness of the statistics, they do not reflect the picture I observe and that is that there is a weight divide amongst the poor and poorish.
The latter- in general- seem to be fatter, if not fattest of all. And the former tend to smoke a bit more.
Your body stores toxins in fat to keep it away from your vital organs until it can filter it out. The more you smoke the more toxins that your body stores and the more fat needed as storage. So yes, smoking makes you fat. Today is the day I am giving up. Smoking ruins your life in ways more than just your health. It effects your quality of life too and your waistline. Wish I had never started because it’s so addictive :(