Background and Objectives: This study aimed to examine whether the association between smoking status and both obesity and abdominal obesity extends to electronic cigarette use. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, nationally representative study used data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) collected between 2016 and 2018. Smoking status was categorized with consideration of electronic cigarette use. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between smoking status and obesity as well as abdominal obesity. Results: After adjusting for sex, age, physical activity, alcohol consumption, hypertension, and diabetes, electronic cigarette users had significantly higher odds of obesity and abdominal obesity than non-smokers (obesity: OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.16–3.38, p = 0.013; abdominal obesity: OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.16–3.53, p = 0.013). In comparisons among current smokers, dual users had significantly higher odds of obesity and abdominal obesity than conventional cigarette smokers (obesity: OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.23–1.96, p < 0.001; abdominal obesity: OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.01–1.68, p = 0.040). Conclusions: Overall, smoking status was associated with a higher prevalence of abdominal obesity, with particularly elevated risk among electronic cigarette and dual users. While the findings for dual users were robust, those for exclusive electronic cigarette users were based on a small sample and should be interpreted as exploratory. Larger studies are needed to confirm these preliminary observations.
Park et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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