Young woman smokers gain significantly more weight over 2-year follow-up than non-smokers. How Virginia doesn't slim

Objective: Although young women often report smoking for weight control purposes, no prospective study has tested whether smokers subsequently gain less weight over time than non-smokers. As this is an important lacuna because smoking results in greater mortality than obesity, the present study addresses this question. Method: Female college students (N = 398; M age = 18.4, SD =0.6; M BMI = 23.7, SD =4.3) recruited for a body acceptance intervention trial provided data on smoking behavior and had their body mass measured at baseline and at 1-mo, 6-mo, 1-yr, and 2-yr follow-ups. Results: Counter to the belief that smoking is an effective weight control strategy, baseline smokers (n = 29) gained significantly more weight (r = .29) than baseline non-smokers (n = 304), controlling for baseline BMI, parental obesity status, socio-economic status, and intervention condition; over 2-yr follow-up smokers gained 2.9 kg versus 0.9 kg for non-smokers. Descriptive data indicated that weight gain was greater for young women who quit smoking during follow-up (n = 13; M = 4.8 kg) than for persistent smokers (n = 16; M = 1.4 kg), though both groups gained more weight than non-smokers. Conclusions: Results challenge the widely held belief that smoking is an effective weight control strategy, ironically suggesting that smokers gain more weight than non-smokers during young adulthood, though non-experimental prospective studies do not establish causal relations and future research with larger representative samples is needed.