Why the study?
Does smoking cessation increase body mass index in adults aged 50 and older?
Does smoking cessation increase body mass index in adults aged 50 and older?
Smoking cessation in older adults is associated with only a small increase in BMI, which can be used to reassure patients concerned about excessive weight gain.
Supports monitoring weight after smoking cessation in adults ≥50; leaves open causality and generalizability from observational data.
OBJECTIVE: This study contributes to the body of literature examining smoking cessation and body mass index (BMI) for adults aged 50 and older. METHOD: Utilizing the 2004 and 2010 waves of the RAND Health and Retirement Study, this analysis utilized Fixed Effects (FE) regression on a sample of 1,316 adults aged 50 and older. RESULTS: Older adults undergo a small change in BMI after a transition from smoking to nonsmoking during a 6-year period, and this occurs after accounting for individual-level unobserved heterogeneity. More specifically, men experience a BMI gain of 1.24 ( p< .01) and women experience a BMI gain of 1.58 ( p< .01). DISCUSSION: Gerontologists/health professionals can use these results to inform older adults about the potential for a small increase in BMI and, in the process, assuage any apprehensions about excessive weight gain. This insight may encourage a greater number of older adults to cease smoking.
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Andy Sharma (2016) studied this question.
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