Female smokers typically ‘anxious, poor’

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 8

Female smokers typically ‘anxious, poor’

PA Wellington Women smokers are generally worse off, both financially and emotionally, than non-smoking women, says a report in the latest “Medical Journal.” The same study also shows women smokers were influenced by whether family members had smoked. A Christchurch researcher, Ms Jane Chetwynd, compared smokers with non-smokers in a sample of nearly 1000 women aged between 18 and 60. The proportion of women who smoked ranged from 45 per cent among the youngest to 26 per cent among the oldest Ms Chetwynd said her findings gave a profile of the woman smoker far removed from the glossy images portrayed in cigarette advertising. Her study suggested that women who smoked were more likely to come from blue collar occupational groups, more likely to be depressed and anxious and more likely to use other dependency-type

substances such as alcohol, coffee or tea on which they could become dependent “The image of the typical woman smoker which emerges from this study is of an anxious and depressed person, likely to be poorer than average, whose immediate family and partner are likely to smoke and who makes frequent use of other dependency substances,” said Ms Chetwynd. This included heavy use of tea or coffee (more than 10 cups a day), heavy use of sugar (more than 10 teaspoons a day) and daily alcohol drinking.

Ms Chetwynd said her study of smokers’ families showed the Importance of parental smoking in influencing whether a child would become a smoker.

“It would appear that girls are Influenced by their mother’s smoking and tend to follow her example. On the other hand, the father’s smoking does not appear to have as strong an Impact "This finding gives

cause for additional concern about the increasing number of women smokers because of the snowballing effect on future’ generations: as more women smoke then more daughters are likely to smoke, and in turn more granddaughters are likely to smoke, and so on," she said. A higher proportion of partners who smoked was found among smokers than non-smokers. Although this might be because individuals who smoked were attracted to each other, it could also be that women had greater difficulty giving up smoking when their partners were smokers. One way to help women give up smoking would be to encourage couples to give up together, she said.

Smokers also said their lives were unhappier than non-smokers.

Ms Chetwynd says her research could be used to begin stop-smoking programmes. As the characteristics of younger smokers were clearer, the stop-smoking message could be targeted to different age groups.