Fall in smoking linked to rise in obesity

A fall in smoking rates among women in recent decades could have sparked a rise in obesity levels, researchers claim.

A long-term study of 3613 Scottish women who never smoked found they were more likely to have been obese when they died compared to their smoking sisters.

This was particularly true for the non-smoking women from working class backgrounds who took part in the study, which began in the early 1970s.

The researchers who carried out the study, published on Wednesday by the British Medical Journal, said high smoking rates 35 years ago had probably concealed the true extent of obesity in non-smoking women.

"(The results) suggest the decline in smoking rates in recent decades may have contributed to the increase in overweight and obesity," they wrote.

"Although lifelong smoking is clearly responsible for much higher mortality rates, obesity, and especially severe obesity, is an important contributor to premature mortality.

"The healthcare consequences of increased morbidity from diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and other complications are also considerable."

The study found obesity was more prevalent among women who never smoked than smokers from across all socio-economic groups.

Severe obesity was more than twice as prevalent among women from low income groups who had never smoked than those non-smokers who were wealthier.

Among the low-income earners, those who were moderately obese had at least a 60 per cent increased mortality rate.

Those who were severely obese also had around double the mortality rate of normal weight women.

The low-income earners who had never smoked were on average shorter and had poorer lung function and higher blood pressure than wealthier women.

"Obesity was more prevalent in never smokers than in the current smokers in the full cohort, with higher prevalence among women in lower social positions, who had higher associated mortality rates," the researchers said.

"Women who had never smoked and were not obese had the lowest mortality rates, regardless of their social position."