[Relationships between smoking behavior and obesity in men from 9 rural districts of Hanzhong in Shaanxi province].

Objective: To examine the relationship between cigarette smoking and body mass index (BMI) as well as waist circumference (WC) of men from 9 rural districts of Hanzhong, Shaanxi province.

Methods: Cross-sectional data was analyzed from Hanzhong Health Survey on rural residents in 2010. Quantile regression mode was used to compare the results using the BMI (WC) and smoking status (degree) as the dependent variables and independent variable and confounding factors were also controlled.

Results: 1039 male residents of rural areas of Hanzhong city were investigated. The prevalence rates on overweight and obesity among the males were 28.0% and 5.9%, with central obesity as 35.0% and the rate of current cigarette smoking was 63.6% in the areas.

Results: from the quantile regression showed that the relationship between smoking status and BMI beyond 80 percentile in men (BMI = 24.4) which was not significantly different BMI among the heavy smokers, was much higher than those mild smokers beyond 90 percentile (BMI = 24.9). WC of the current smokers was significantly higher than those ex-smokers beyond the 95 percentile (WC = 96.7 cm). WCs of the moderate and heavy smokers had an increase along with the increase of WCs beyond the 85 percentiles (WC = 89.9 cm).

Conclusion: The effect of smoking status and BMI (WC) were inconsistent, however, with BMI and WC increased among the subjects whose BMI or WC were at the high extreme end of the distribution. Thus, we should advise the obese subjects to quit smoking.