Smoking Wastes a Good Parisienne

To the Editor. — A recent report by Shimokata et al¹suggests that, in men, smoking might have an inverse effect on body mass index and the repartition of body fat by decreasing the body mass index and increasing the waist-hip ratio. Little is known about the associations between smoking and distribution of body fat in women. Data similar to those of Shimokata et al¹are available in a cross-sectional study on the repartition of body fat performed among 408 French women aged 20 to 65 years employed in a department store in Paris, France. Although there was a weak but not significant negative association between body mass index and smoking status, there was a significant increase in the waist-hip ratio among the heaviest smokers (Table 1), thus confirming in a female population the previous finding of an unfavorable effect of smoking on the distribution of body fat in