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Published on: October 22, 2020
Association between smoking and physical attractiveness: A longitudinal panel study from the China Family Panel
Jing Zhou1, Qingsheng Liu1, Fengrui Hua2
1Research Institute of Social Development, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.
Introduction:
Physical attractiveness constitutes a form of human capital, which shapes social interactions and life-course outcomes. This study investigated the association between smoking and physical attractiveness.
Methods:
This longitudinal panel study conducted a secondary analysis of data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2010 to 2022, linking seven survey waves through unique individual and family identifiers. After restricting the analysis to respondents aged 16-85 years and applying additional data quality criteria, the final sample consisted of 33632 respondents and 119071 observations. The independent variables included smoking status and daily cigarette consumption. The dependent variable was the physical attractiveness evaluated by the interviewer, scored 1 to 7. To examine the association between smoking and physical attractiveness, we employed a two-way fixed-effects model that accounts for time-invariant individual characteristics and common time trends. Furthermore, we investigated the heterogeneity of this association with respect to gender, age, and marital status.
Results:
A significant negative association existed between smoking and physical attractiveness in the analysis of 119071 observations. After adjusting for confounding variables, the average score for physical attractiveness of current smokers was 0.04 points lower than that of non-smokers (β= -0.04; 95% CI: -0.07 - -0.02). For every unit increase in the natural logarithm of daily cigarette consumption, physical attractiveness decreased by 0.02 points (β= -0.02; 95% CI: -0.03 - -0.01). Heterogeneity analyses indicated that this negative association was more pronounced among males, married individuals, and middle-aged and elderly adults (35-59 and ≥60 years), whereas it did not reach statistical significance among females, unmarried individuals, or young people (16-34 years).
Conclusions:
Smoking was negatively associated with physical attractiveness, which is more pronounced in certain populations. Further studies are needed to verify these findings and to explore whether appearance-based messaging could be used in tobacco control campaigns.
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