Popularity of a student in the school may indicate whether he/she will smoke.
The findings of the study reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health found students who are popular among their peers and school more likely to smoke cigarettes than their unpopular counterparts.
Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) and University of Texas initiated to examine the negative side of being the popular student of a school.
For the analysis, Thomas W. Valente, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and colleagues included nearly 2,000 students studying in the ninth and 10th grades between Oct. 2006 and 2007.
All the children participated in the study shared their smoking habits with the investigators. Apart from that, they also revealed their opinion about smoking and gave details about their smoking friends. Popularity of the student was decided by interviewing other students.
At the end of the study, the investigators found popular students starting the smoking habit before the unpopular students and students who start smoking during ninth and 10th grades making friends with other smoking students.
"That we're still seeing this association more than 10 years later, despite marginal declines in smoking, suggests that popularity is a strong predictor of smoking behavior," Dr. Valente said in a statement. "Adolescence is a time when students turn to others to figure out what is important. These are four different samples, now, coming from different places-and the finding is consistent."
However, a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently found tobacco use among teenagers gone down considerably. The latest CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reported cigarette smoking among teenagers during 2000 and 2011 coming down by 33 percent, while use of tobacco in other forms like cigars and loose going up by 123 percent.
