Trajectories of body mass index and combustible and electronic cigarette use across adolescence: Findings from the PATH study

Purpose

Associations between empirically-generated body mass index (BMI) trajectories and risk of current use of combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes across adolescence were examined using longitudinal data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study.

Methods

The PATH study is an ongoing annual longitudinal population-based study of adolescents. We utilized Waves 1–4 conducted from 2013 to 2017. Adolescents completed self-reported surveys of their height, weight, and current tobacco use at Waves 1–4 and their tobacco weight control beliefs at Waves 1–2.

Results

Using latent growth mixture modeling, six trajectories of BMI were identified. The largest group (“normal weight increasing;” n = 4,858; 86.6 %), which was used as the comparator in subsequent analyses, consisted of adolescents ages 12–17 who were normal weight at Wave 1 with a significant increase in BMI across Waves 2––4. The “overweight early increasing,” “overweight late increasing,” and “obesity stable” classes had greater likelihood of current combustible cigarette use during the study compared to the “normal weight increasing class.” The “overweight early increasing,” “overweight late increasing,” and “overweight increasing then decreasing” classes showed elevated risk for e-cigarette use during the study. Compared to those in the “normal weight increasing” class, those in the “overweight increasing then decreasing” and “obesity stable” classes had greater weight control beliefs at Wave 1 and those in the “obesity stable” class had greater weight control beliefs at Wave 2.

Conclusions

Findings highlight the importance of weight trajectories and weight control beliefs by tobacco product use across adolescence and the need for mechanistic and intervention research.