A recent study published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research (2022) examined longitudinal associations between e-cigarette use, cigarette smoking, physical activity, and recreational screen time (ST) in a cohort of Canadian adolescents (ages 14–17 years; grades 9–12).
Findings showed new e-cigarette use at follow-up was associated with maintenance of participation in sports and meeting physical activity cut-points, but also with increased recreational screen time.
New cigarette smoking at follow-up was associated with maintaining high screen time and low sports participation.
Cigarette smoking at baseline and follow-up was associated with maintaining high screen time, low muscle strengthening exercises, and low sports participation.
Cigarette smoking cessation at follow-up was associated with increasing physical activity, decreasing screen time, and maintaining low sports participation.
The authors concluded that given the clustering and co-occurring unhealthy behavioral patterns, intervention strategies to promote healthy lifestyles should take a holistic approach, by targeting multiple behavioral changes simultaneously.
Specifically, these results indicate that nicotine use prevention efforts should also aim to reduce and prevent increases in screen time among adolescents to strengthen prevention outcomes.
However, because new and stable e-cigarette use appears to co-occur with achieving sufficient levels of physical activity, e-cigarette prevention should be provided to potentially higher-risk groups such as school and community athletes and sports teams.
Read the entire research abstract: https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article-abstract/24/7/978/6445184