The Claim: Because quitting smoking causes many people to gain weight, the decline in smoking since the 1960s helped fuel the rise in the rate of obesity, argues a paper by three economists.
The Backstory: Gaining weight after quitting smoking is so common you almost don’t need research to “discover” it. But since Gut Check believes in data and not anecdotes, we recommend this 1991 study, which found an average 6-pound gain for men and an 8-pound increase for women; this one from 1998, which found average gains of 11 to 13 pounds; and this 2012 meta-analysis of 62 studies, which concluded that quitting adds 10 pounds. The 15 studies reviewed by the US Surgeon General in 1990 found that four-fifths of people who quit smoking gained weight (average: 5 pounds). Similarly, there is no question that Americans have been packing on the pounds in recent decades: in the early 1960s, 13 percent of US adults were obese; now, 35 percent are. Over roughly that period, the percentage of adults who smoke fell from 42 percent to 19 percent.
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