Smoking status of 132,176 people advertising on a dating website. Are smokers more "desperate and dateless"?
OBJECTIVE
To determine (i) whether people advertising themselves on a dating website were more likely to be smokers than members of the general population; and (ii) whether attractive advertisers (those whose ads were viewed most often) were less likely to smoke than all advertisers.


METHODS
Comparison of the number of advertisers who smoke with survey data on national smoking status.


METHODS
"RSVP", Australia's largest web-based dating site (455,196 members on 12 October 2004).


METHODS
132,176 advertisements accessed on 10 February 2004.


METHODS
Smoking status; and "votes" for advertisers' attractiveness based on how often visitors to the site accessed individual advertisements.


RESULTS
In every age group, there were higher proportions of women smokers among the advertisers than in the general population (P < 0.05), and this was also the case for men aged 50 years and over. There was a higher proportion of non-smokers in the "Top 100" men or women advertisers aged 20-29 years (82%) compared with total RSVP advertisers in this age group (67%) (P < 0.001). 85% of the men and 78% of the women in the two "Top 100" groups were non-smokers, with only 2% of both sexes claiming to be regular smokers.


CONCLUSIONS
Compared with the general population, a higher proportion of women and older men who advertise themselves on a dating website are smokers. Smokers may be perceived as less attractive.
Chapman
Simon
S
School of Public Health, University of Sydney, NSW. simonchapman@health.usyd.edu.au
Wakefield
Melanie A
MA
Durkin
Sarah J
SJ
D000328:Adult; D000329:Advertising; D017677:Age Distribution; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D020407:Internet; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011336:Probability; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*