ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effects of smoking cessation on weight gain and discusses the effectiveness of interventions to reduce or prevent weight gain following smoking cessation. Cigarette smoking, much like obesity, is a burden upon the health care system and accounts for a substantial number of preventable deaths in the United States and worldwide each year. Smoking is associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality as well as risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Given the aforementioned negative health consequences of both obesity and smoking, one would intuitively predict increased risk of mortality associated with combined obesity and smoking as opposed to either obesity or smoking alone. Several methodological differences may account for some of the variability in the amount of weight gained following smoking cessation. B. Spring et al. investigated an eight-week behavioral treatment for weight control incorporated into a 16-week behavioral smoking cessation program.
