Does Physical Activity Increase the Smoking Prevalence?: Findings From Urban-Heart2 Publisher



Khamene SS^{1, 2, 3} ; Khawajah IM^{1, 2, 3} ; Karimi K^{1, 4} ; Danandeh K¹ ; Memari A¹ Show Affiliations
Source: Sport Sciences for Health Published:2025

Abstract

Introduction: Many socioeconomic factors can influence unhealthy behaviors like smoking as they play an important role in social and individual health problems. It is imperative to identify how tobacco is associated with the social and demographic risk factors as well as other health behaviors particularly physical activity (PA). The study further aimed to evaluate whether physical activity influences smoking prevalence. Methods: This study was a comprehensive survey with a cross-sectional study in 22 districts and 368 neighborhoods of Tehran in 2011. We evaluated the relationship between different types of PA (work time, leisure-time, and travel time) and smoking with moderators of sex, family income satisfaction, housing status, and violence. Results: Out of 7388 participants, the majority of them were male (83.75%) and married (77.6%). There was a significant relationship between smoking with sex, age, family income satisfaction, job-status, family violence, education, housing status (P value < 0.001), and work time PA (P value < 0.005). Also, higher education was associated with more PA (P value < 0.001). Conclusion: In our study, being male, married, having an intermediate level of education, family violence, low family income satisfaction, non-homeownership, and generally lower socioeconomic status (SES), as well as worktime PA are associated with an increase of the smoking rate. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature 2025.