Presidential candidate Barack Obama announced this week that he is trying to quit smoking, highlighting the trend of political figures kicking the habit because they feel it is bad for their image as well as their health.

The Chicago Tribune reported Feb. 6 that Obama said that he was trying to quit before his quest for the White House begins in earnest, bringing heightened scrutiny of his personal life.

"I've never been a heavy smoker," said Obama, a U.S. Senator from Illinois. "I've quit periodically over the last several years. I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb. I've been chewing Nicorette strenuously."

The last U.S. president to openly smoke was Franklin Roosevelt, but a number of White House occupants -- up to and including First Lady Laura Bush -- have continued to puff in private. Political leaders, seen as role models, are under pressure to kick their unhealthy habits. For Obama, smoking clashes with his image as a forward-thinking 21st-century candidate.

"Brand has become so big with personalities. It includes the kind of suit he wears and the shoes he chooses," said Irving Rein, a communications-studies professor at Northwestern University. "Smoking is part of that package. It doesn't go with the social, environmental message of reform he would like to project. His image would be impacted by it."

Obama said he smokes 10 or fewer cigarettes a day, but he has been an on-and-off smoker since at least the late 1970s. "I hope he makes it a public fight," said Mark Peysakhovich of the American Heart Association. "If he's got a nic fit and he's in a bad mood, I hope some of that comes out. Maybe it will encourage other people to be brave enough to try ... It could make him more human to people, if he's got the same kind of struggles the rest of us have."