Why may teenage girls persist in smoking?

Teenage girls often smoke cigarettes, recognizing that it protects them fro m the impulse to binge eat with its feared weight-gain consequences. Eviden ce is marshalled from our studies of a female eating disordered population, teenage females (London, U.K. and Ottawa, Canada) and middle aged women (L ondon and rural England) in the general population. Teenage female data ana lysis reveals links between smoking and body-weight/shape concerns. Those w ho smoked were likely to be moderately overweight. Smoking was also related at all ages to being postmenarchal. Sensitivity to shape is largely and qu alitatively prompted by the development of body fat in puberty. Smoking by the London schoolgirls in particular also independently revealed an associa tion with greater weight loss since puberty. Smoking was powerfully linked with vomiting undertaken as another defence against weight gain and may als o be further reinforced as a behaviour by it. The eating disordered populat ion showed these latter associations most strikingly. Since smoking amongst older women is associated with below average body weight it may indeed be effective in curbing weight gain and therefore promoting desired weight los s. Our studies provide little evidence of association between smoking and g eneralized or social anxiety. We propose that preventative psychological ap proaches to teenage female smoking should include attention to these matter s. (C) 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.