Teens Smoke Trying to Lose Weight




At the time of puberty young boys and girls are worried about their look much more than people of other ages. Due to hormonal changes many of them gain some weight, so teenagers use various available means to lose it.

Young adults learn about weight-control methods mostly from their friends, so they start skipping meals substituting them with cigarettes. Smoking doesn’t help to lose weight as many of them think, but it does kill craving for food.

The research made by the University of Florida was held from April 1194 to August 1996 among the students of 7-12th grades. 7,795 young adults were participating in the study. Boys and girls who have already been smokers before the experiment and the ones who admitted to taking diet pills, vomiting and using other unhealthy ways of weight-loss control were excluded.

The research showed the teens were more likely to start smoking after they decided to diet. Girls were twice more likely to do so than boys though there are more overweight boys (over 30%) than girls (20%) at this age-range. Claire Mullins, vice president of communications at the American Lung Association of Maryland, says, “Since nicotine raises metabolism and thus the potential to lose weight, teens might perceive that ‘benefit’ to be an influencing factor in the decision to start smoking”.

The idea of “good influence” of nicotine is false. This point was proved by the study made in 1998. The scientists at the University of Memphis Prevention Center were investigating the weight change among 4,000 young people (ages 18 to 30) who never smoked, were smoking and the ones who quitted during the research.

The results showed smoking had minimal influence on weight control, specifically on weight loss. At the same time the study brought the scientists to the conclusion, quitting smoking provokes weight gain: 54% of the participants got at least 5 kilograms heavier and 29% gained at least 10 kg.

Another research made in Finland in 2008-2009 came to the same weight-gain results. Sherry Pagoto, assistant professor in clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, explains this factor with the following words, “When people do quit smoking, one of the reasons they gain weight is that they increase their consumption of foods. They’ll start snacking at the times they used to smoke.”

Lately the number of teenage smokers dropped: in 1995 about 35% of young adults smoked regularly and in 2006 this number decreased to 23% although the percentage of girls smokers was a little higher than boys. Mostly it was achieved because of the campaigns and special classes held in high schools.

Although the media and schools are active at the non-smoking actions, it is still not enough to prevent young people from the bad habit of smoking. Parents should be attentive to their children problems and talk more to them. Anne-Luise Winter, the scientist at the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences, advises parents to start have talks about diets and smoking when their children are 8-10 years old. She says it will be too late to talk to teens (12-16 years-old) because by that time they have already received all “necessary” information from their friends and classmates and won’t listen.

There are two talks that have to be handled: first of all parents should figure out if the child is worried about weight gain and plans to do something about it. They could find a healthy diet and do sport activities for weight-loss together.

It is also up to parents to explain the harmful effect smoking does to a young person’s body. Some books, articles on the Internet and documentary videos of researches will be a good help for the anxious parents.

Elisa Jackson

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Posted on January 28, 2009 
Filed Under Smoking and Diet, Smoking and Health, Smoking and Youth

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