It’s an enduring irony that many smokers would rather line their lungs with tar than add inches to their waistline.But, according to a new survey of 1,200 Ohio State students, faculty and staff, that often seems to be the case.Eighty percent of smokers surveyed said it is somewhat or very likely smokers do not quit for fear of gaining weight.”There is definitely a perception that there is a direct physiological reason for gaining weight after people quit smoking,” said Jacqueline Daley-Perrin, director of the Student Wellness Center. “But often people don’t attribute the weight gain to other kinds of behaviors.”The connection does exist. Smoking dulls taste buds and suppresses appetites, Daley-Perrin said. Once smokers quit, those effects dissipate, which could inspire people to eat more.There is also a behavioral component ‹ smoking is habitual, and so once smokers quit, food can replace cigarettes, Daley-Perrin said.But even among smokers who’ve never quit and never had a chance to verify whether gaining weight is linked to smoking, the belief in a connection thrives.The OSU survey, conducted by the Survey Research Unit of the College of Social Behavioral Sciences and directed by Journalism Professor Paul Lavrakas, suggests the fear of gaining weight could deter smokers from quitting ‹ particularly women.Eighty-six percent of female smokers agreed the connection exists while 75 percent of male smokers did. “Women are affected by body issues because of how [they] are portrayed in the media,” Daley-Perrin said. The portrayals “affect their sense … of what a normal or healthy body looks like. The body size we see in media is a two or a three where the average female body size in America is size 12,” she said.The obvious question is whether these high percentages indicate that women use smoking as a mechanism for controlling weight.Robert Jeffrey, professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, doesn’t think so. Most women in this age group are concerned about weight gain, he said, but it is not clear that smokers are any more so.Some of these results are startling, particularly for freshmen female smokers. Though they comprised only a small portion of the survey, every freshman female smoker agreed that quitting smoking and gaining weight were connected. Among freshmen male smokers, the result was considerably less: 64 percent.”A lot of freshmen … are facing lifestyle changes,” Daley-Perrin said. They choose their own meals and often accelerate their drinking habits, she said.According to the survey, freshmen smoke the most. Twenty-five percent of freshmen smoke while 8 percent of sophomores, 19 percent of juniors, 20 percent of seniors, 7 percent of masters and 13 percent of doctoral students smoke.Daley-Perrin attributed these results to smoking’s association with drinking. National statistics suggest “freshmen tend to drink more than others on the average,” she said.Despite these results, the survey found that only 12 percent of the OSU community smokes. This is significantly less than national and state levels. A 1994 survey found that smokers constitute 25.5 percent of adults in the nation and 26 percent of adults in Ohio.The survey also found that 19 percent of undergraduates smoke, while 8 percent of graduate students, 5 percent of faculty and 16 percent of staff do.