Very tall female young adults tended to be smokers: A large-scale exploratory cross-sectional survey of 26,405 college students in China

Abstract

Objective

This study investigated the sex-specific prevalence of smoking (past 30 days) and the associations with height among university/college students.

Participants

25,405 (11,579/14,826 males/females) college students in Xi’an China.

Methods

A cross-sectional, self-administered survey.

Results

The male and female prevalence of smoking (past 30 days) was 32.9% and 7.4%, respectively. The prevalence of smoking of the male height groups ranged from 29.8% to 36.9%; only the ≥188 cm height group showed significantly higher prevalence than the reference group (i.e., 173–177cm; 33.0%). The female prevalence of smoking was 4.0–8.2% in the ≤170cm groups and increased to 12.3% in the 171–175 cm group and 36.1% in the ≥176 cm group, while it was 6.5% for the reference group (161–165 cm).

Conclusions

This exploratory study firstly revealed the significantly higher prevalence of smoking among the “tallest” height groups, especially among females. Future studies are warranted to confirm such findings and explore related mechanisms.

Keywords:

• Smoking
• height stratification
• sex difference
• China
• young adult
• university students

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants for their contributions.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors declare no conflict of interests. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of China and received approval from the Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by grants from the New-star Plan of Science and Technology of Shaanxi Province (2015LJXX-07) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (qngz2016004).