Conundrum of healthy-looking Germans smoking

I read that 40% of Germans smoke ciggarettes. The Germans that I have met all seem to be very healthy looking even though some of them smoke. I am wondering if there is some kind of collective social awareness that keeps Germans from not smoking too much. Like maybe Germans tend to be light smokers(around a cigs a day or so). Any ideas on this subject?

Each and every smoker, no matter what nationality or sexual/political persuasion, should be given an ultimatum to quit the habit or be shot at dawn 28 days hence. Zero tolerance. Quitting would be good for them and good for us all. A win-win situation if ever there was one.

It's not difficult for someone to appear healthy even though they are a smoker. Smoking certainly doesn't make one gain weight, and other physical effects that can eventually show up are mainly seen in the face of a smoker - but only after many years of very heavy smoking. It is possible that they just don't smoke as much as other people do, but I doubt it. Addiction is universal. German smokers are no less subject to addiction than are smokers from any other country in the world.

It is interesting though; Germans seem to be much more active than the Brits, are more into health foods and organic food, and are more concerned about food ingredients than other nationalities. They are also very keen smokers. It's an enigma. They sit in pubs boasting about the beer purity law ("only natural ingredients!") while poisoning themselves with the 200-odd chemicals found in a cigarette.

But it's not only cigarettes; their food tends to contain more fat than in other countries – "diet" foods haven't really caught on here because they do taste quite awful. Germany enjoys a considerably higher standard of living than the UK, but the life expectancy here is slightly shorter. They would argue they die younger but enjoy life more, and I'm sufficiently biased to agree with them.

Healthy-looking till their faces all turn to leathery pinched raisins overnight at one point or another.

I have nothing to add to this thread but wish to applaud you for your using of the word Conundrum . It is one of my favorite words...Now mods please delete.

Germans are more sporty. Health isnt just consumption but other things as well.

hmm! anybody that smokes is a smoker! nobody smokes one a day! get real, its an addiction, and everyone lies about it! Most smokers smoke at least 10 a day (studies have shown that - sorry no link).
Try telling a german that they will lose all their teeth if they do not stop smoking, and they look at you like you are on drugs!

Like STB said, its so weird that they are into what else they put in their bodies! lol!

There do seem though to be a lot of "social smokers" in Germany, the bastards who only ever smoke when surrounded by lots of other people who can breathe in their fumes. A friend of mine is a social smoker and, like Carm, I therefore consider her to be a "smoker", but she claims she's a non-smoker because she doesn't smoke every day. The 40% figure is an exaggeration, I believe, if you are only counting regular smokers.

<dons firefroof suit> I've thought a lot about this, too, and have formulated some half-baked, completely unscientific thoughts on the high level of tobacco use in Germany:

1) I am convinced one reason for higher tobacco usage is low brain serotonin levels ... more people in Germany are self-medicating for depression. Beer clearly helps, too.

2) There seems to be a baseline view that more favorable genetics (seriously ... I've heard people lumping it in with the lower AIDS incidence related to ancestors' Black Plague survival), lower body weight, a sensible diet and a modicum of daily exercise allow one to get away with a little bit of what one fancies. Outside of a few hard-cores, I have observed that daily consumption is probably <10 ... very few 80-a-day Kate Moss specials.

3) You-know-who was such a rabid anti-smoker that in the post-war era lots of people (notably women) jumped on the "let's make a complete break from the terrible past by lighting up in public" bandwagon. I also think that since it was so tightly rationed, it acquired panache as a luxury item.

4) Remember, cigarettes are a WWI-era American invention. People forget that everyone in the US smoked like truckers WWII through the 60s, and they all look great on photos because few were overweight. Of course, considering cigarettes only became mass-consumption items in the 1920s and mean lung cancer onset is at age 66, that means that 1966 would've been about the time that people would've started dropping like flies. Perhaps no coincidence that the US Surgeon General's report was 1964 ... it took that long for the epidemiology to show up. If cigarette smoking only became widespread in Germany in 1950, then the 66-year-old cohort would have been hitting the median point in 1996. Ergo, less collective consciousness/familial memories of grandparents/parents on oxygen in their final years.

5) They're cheap! Compare a pack of smokes in New York or London at c. EUR 8/pack to EUR 3-4 in Germany.

6) Medical, insurance and governmental authorities are much more accepting. I received a "rate your lifestyle" questionnaire from our health insurance provider in which you only got an off-baseline score for tobacco use is you were >10/day! Plus, I think life insurance companies might even grant similar-cost policies for for smokers and non-smokers [need a fact check on this]. My conspiracy theory is that they all know that smoking whacks people c. 10 years earlier than otherwise, which will keep the retirement/healthcare systems remotely solvent.

7) It's socially accepted to the degree that people are less stressed out about smoking themselves ... not the nervous pariah furtively sneaking a smoke behind the dumpster. Maybe the stress is as big a risk factor as those who happily puff away on few a day?

One clearly shoudn't smoke .. or live in Hong Kong, London or New York, or breathe German Firmenwagenfeinstaub, either. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.

Most of the maybe fifty or so over-60s that I know or hear about through my in-laws (mostly west Germans) are indeed now all suddenly starting to drop like flies, but none of them - though at least half of them were or are smokers - have lung cancers or emphysema. Mostly it's other aggressive cancers, thyroid diseases, parkinson's, alzheimers, or just plain getting suddenly old and frail. They're also mostly pretty shocked and depressed about it, because their parents (those that survived the war, anyway) tended to stay healthy an additional 10 or 20 years longer.

My personal and totally non-scientific theory is that it has more to do with all the cured packaged meats and cheeses these people love, and which must have become a staple after the first flush of luxury.

Fully agreed on the processed food (it's an insider medical joke that the German innards are so bombarded by Wurst and Schnitzel that they show up completely white on the x-ray) ... but do you want to know Die Frau's one-word theory for the higher incidence of body cancers?: Chernobyl. Where's Djgrazy when we need him most?

there is also no responsibility on the smoker for their health risks. I was in the hospital to have my tonsils out, and the women in the bed next to me, had a large tumour removed from her throat... was her second tumour removed in 2 years, and as she woke up out of the anesthetic, and they wanted us to walk a bit and get mobile, she asked if she could go for a smoke! I was thinking WTF?

I had a patient this week, very ill from her Chemo treatments, still smoking! Even though she has a lung tumour- but its not caused from smoking, so she will keep smoking!

IMO- these people are a liability on the insurance companies and should not get further treatments paid for if they cannot stop smoking.

Vanroyal, your figure of 40% smokers in Germany seems too high. The number is more like 29%, according to Allensbach (polling institute).



Among them are indeed smokers that are not addicted but smoke occasionally, just for pleasure. Perhaps the occasional cigarette helps them destressing. Some people's organisms aren't really affected by smoking for a long time, especially if the overall lifestyle is healthy. Quite a few smokers quit at some time of their life, and the lung is able to recover very well. The risk of cancer seems to be co-determined by genetic factors.

I don't mean to say smoking is good for your health (since the individual risk cannot be known), but IMO smoking is demonized compared to other health risks. And no, I don't smoke.

tell a german smoking is bad for them, they will without a doubt always mention Helmut Schmidt!!