Team sport participation and smoking: analysis with general growth mixture modeling

To assess the likelihood of smoking among adolescents with different patterns of team sport participation, grades 9-11.

Adolescents (N = 1098) participating in a longitudinal study of the biobehavioral predictors of smoking adoption completed items assessing various health-related behaviors, including team sport participation and smoking practices. General growth mixture modeling (GGMM) was used to analyze the data.

Four patterns of team sport participation were found. Adolescents with decreasing or erratic participation were nearly three times more likely than adolescents with high participation to be current smokers in eleventh grade. Nonwhites were at particular risk for decreasing and erratic patterns of participation, and later smoking. Females were at high risk for low team participation.

Results suggest that multiple patterns of team sport participation can be identified with GGMM and that these patterns may be useful in characterizing individuals at particular risk for future smoking.