title: Smoking habits and sporting activity among adolescents in north Italy.
abstract: A cross-sectional survey of the smoking habits of 330 17-19 year-old males practising physical activity as members of sports teams, and of 366 male students in the same age range was carried out in Brescia, North Italy. A total of 23.3% of the athletes and 30.9% of the students smoked at least one cigarette a week (chi 2 = 4.60, p less than 0.05), and 17.3% and 19.7% smoked at least one cigarette a day, respectively (chi 2 = 0.51; p greater than 0.05). The smoking athletes had on average 50.3 cigarettes/week and students 47.0 (t-test: 0.46; p greater than 0.05). No difference was found with respect to age at their first experience with smoking, while athletes began to smoke regularly before than students, proportionally (chi 2 for linear trend: 5.29, p less than 0.05). Sporting activity was negatively associated with current smoking by multiple logistic regression: the odds ratio of current smoking for athletes with respect to students was 0.5 (95% CI: 0.4-0.8). Among a set of social, environmental and behavioural variables, best friend's and girlfriend's smoking was the one most strongly associated with current smoking in both groups.
authors.affiliation: Chair of Cardiology, University of Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Assanelli
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Donato
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marconi
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Corsini
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tonini
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bonvini
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nardi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010379:Peer Group; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012931:Social Environment; D013177:Sports; D013334:Students