Nearly everyone gains weight after smoking cessation. Multiple scientific studies confirm the average is about 10-12 pounds of gain in the first 5-7 years after smoking cessation. Do women gain more weight than men? It turns out there is little average difference between the amount of weight gained by men and women (although men seem to care a lot less about weight gain). The greatest driver of more weight gain after smoking cessation is baseline weight at the time you quit smoking and how heavily you smoked. Ex-smokers who were overweight or obese when the quit smoking gained more on average than those who were near or below their ideal body weight and heavier smokers tend to gain more weight than lighter smokers after smoking cessation. There are many other important differences between men and women that may influence weight gain after smoking cessation, and one of them is menopause experienced by women usually around age 50.
A 2017 study examined women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative that included over 90,000 post-menopausal women who were followed for many years to study factors that influenced their health.* When they looked at the impact of long-term smoking cessation on ultimate weight gain here is the bottom line—the women on average quit at age 41 and over 20 years later they weighed about 6 pounds more than the women who never smoked and about 10 pounds more than those who continued to smoke. Every group of the women in the study (never smokers, former smokers and current smokers) gained weight over their lifetime from age 18 to 65. Women who formerly smoked gained a total of 37 pounds, never smokers gained 36 pounds and continuing smokers gained 32 pounds. One way to look at this is that the women who continued to smoke throughout their adult lives traded over 45 years of smoking (and about 6-10 years of life lost!) for 5 less pounds of weight gain compared to the women who stopped smoking. No one would make that trade!
Healthy lifestyle including diet and exercise habits and maintaining healthy weight as we age is important for increasing length and quality of life. Smoking cessation will have greater impact on your future health than all other health habits you can change… even if it costs gaining a few pounds over a lifetime.
Dr. Hays
*Kabat GC, Moonseong H, Allison M, et al. Smoking habits and body weight over adult lifespan in postmenopausal women. Am J Preventive Med 2017;52(3):e77-e84.
