Smoking is one of the most important and biggest issues of risky behaviors which may lead to different individual and social problems. In our study, the prevalence of smoking was 14.7%. The majority of smokers were men. There was an association between smoking and sufficient PA in men, the risk of smoking was higher in low SES families, unemployed and occupying rather than being retired and good self-reported health status more related to smoking than poor self-reported health.
Smoking can be affected by different types of PA, for example, in our study we found that workplace PA increases smoking, especially sufficient working hours increase the rate of smoking to 1.25 fold compared to insufficient PA at work like Seong-UK Beak’s (27) study that confirmed the more the working hours, the higher the smoking or drinking rate. Another study by DW Lee(28) and his partners revealed that as working hours increase, sleeping time decreases and people turn to unhealthy habits much more. Melanie J. Nadell found that young adults who engaged in more PA at work had lower levels of smoking and urges to smoke. (29)
The study conducted in Tehran, Iran, found that cigarette smoking was associated with physical inactivity, with smokers tending to exercise less compared to non-smokers. (30) Another study in China revealed a negative association between physical exercise and smoking among residents aged 16 years and older, especially among males.(31) Furthermore, a study in Taiwan found that smoking was associated with lower exercise frequency and duration, suggesting that smokers engage in less PA compared to non-smokers.(32) we found no significant relation between leisure time PA and smoking but in S. C. Moore’s study they found an association between smoking in lung cancer patients and leisure time PA (LTPA).(33) In another study, Arem et al. found that individuals who have more LTPA tend to be more nonsmokers.(34)
Generally, we can see that lower PA can be linked to lower family income satisfaction and diet patterns (like fruit and vegetable eating), and lower family income satisfaction can be related to a higher chance of engaging in risky behaviors like smoking. This may be generalized to our result that sufficient work-time PA increases the smoking rate; maybe gatherings with co-workers or havingcompany leads to higher pleasure in smoking. This can also be because of the stress and pressure of working hours.
In the UK, there has been a slight decrease in smoking among adults aged 35–64, with smoking prevalence declining from 14.8–13.1% between the pre-pandemic estimate and January 2021.(35) Smoking prevalence in 2020 was 32.6% among men and 6.5% among women globally.(36) In our study it was 17% and 3.5% respectively, which can be because of the slight difference in sample sizes.
In our study, married people were found to smoke more than others (16.8%). By contrast, Behrooz Hamzeh’s (37) study found that smoking intensity is higher among single individuals/divorced people.
This could probably be because of the burden of economic and family income satisfaction issues. The pressure of handling financial problems due to current inflation is inevitable, which may lead to psychological difficulties making people more likely to smoke. Like family income satisfaction status, housing status may affect smoking habits as in our study farmer status increased the risk of smoking like Jackson’ study.(38) As we can see in this study, low-income families had a higher chance of smoking compared to high-income families. Again, this can confirm the importance of families’ financial problems in triggering risky behaviors similar to previous studies (39), (40) which stated that high income and education level are associated with lower smoking rates. Probably higher education level comes with more health knowledge and wiser decision-making. On the other hand, this study stated that Intermediate education is associated with a higher risk of smoking compared to Beginner education. We expect higher levels of education like college or university to make a difference in people’s behavior.
In another view, Intermediate school may destroy the excitement of new/ dangerous experiences for teenagers and lead them to make bad decisions.
Fernando Silva’s study on sociodemographic and lifestyle factors related to violent behaviors among university students revealed that the students, especially males, who had more violent behavior were more physically active, and consumed more alcohol and drugs.(41) This can be similar to our study which showed sufficient PA during work time was associated with more smoking.
Another study by Constança Soares conducted on Portuguese adolescent’s majority of whom were overweight and obese showed that violent behavior, low academic performance, and poorer family relationships were associated with more substance use. Also, lower SES was related to low fruit and vegetable eating (42) but Bridgette E. Garrett’s study showed that in Asian and Hispanic women lower education is not associated with higher cigarette smoking, and for Hispanic men and Asian women, they didn’t find any differences in poverty status.(43)