Are Smokers 'Desperate and Dateless'?
Compared with the general population, a higher proportion of the women and older men who advertise themselves on a dating website are smokers, according to some light-hearted research published in the Christmas issue of the Medical Journal of Australia.
The report comes from Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, and Drs Melanie Wakefield and Sarah Durkin from the Cancer Council Victoria.
The study looked at 132,176 advertisements on 'RSVP', Australia's largest web-based dating site, in February this year, and recorded smoking status of people advertising on the site, including the 'Top 100' men and women advertisers, based on the number of times individual advertisements were visited.
"In every age group for women, there were higher proportions of smokers among the advertisers than in the general population," Professor Chapman said.
"This was also the case for men aged 50 years and over.
"By comparison, there was a higher proportion of non-smokers in the 'Top 100' men or women advertisers age 20-29 years (82 per cent) compared with total RSVP advertisers in this age group (67 per cent).
"Eighty-five per cent of men and 78 per cent of women in the two 'Top 100' groups were non-smokers, with only 2 per cent of both sexes claiming to be regular smokers.
"People 'clicking on' the photographs of advertisers do not know the person's smoking status before they view the information supplied.
"Thus, the 'Top 100' men and women are chosen for their looks. That only 2 per cent of these 200 people were regular smokers suggests that smoking may be associated with less attractive looks.
"Such information might provide some smokers with additional motivation to quit," Professor Chapman said.
CONTACT Professor Simon CHAPMAN 0438 340 304
Judith TOKLEY, AMA Public Affairs, 0408 824 306 / 02 6270 5471