Why They Don’t Quit Smoking?
This may sound ridiculous to you, but many teen
age girls and even adults for that matter actually believe that smoking
cigarettes can help them stay slim so that they won't put on extra weight.
Yes, you read that right. It is because of this belief that is preventing many
young women from quitting smoking.
Research conducted in Canada
and the United
Kingdom
showed that one third of young girls viewed weight gain as a reason not to
quit smoking for good.
Take for example, Cindy, a petite slim 24 year old
lady, said "I tend to eat a lot when I don't smoke, in particular food like
candy, chocolate and junk food. The last time I tried cutting down on
cigarettes, I gained about 6 pounds in just a matter of weeks. Frankly, I
don't worry about the health risks for being a smoker as they seem so distant.
However, I can see the link with my weight immediately. So I continue smoking
to maintain my ideal body weight."
So is there a proven link between smoking
and weight control? American researchers found that smokers are just likely to
put on weight as non-smokers. Like everyone else, smokers come in all shapes
and sizes. As a matter of fact, it was found that those who are slightly
overweight are the ones smoking the most.
Therefore is it a mistake for young women to take
up smoking in the belief that smoking will help them manage their weight and
to stay slim?
Well, it is known that whether you smoke or not
does not really matter as far as putting on weight is concerned. It is that
people have the tendency to put on weight when they quit smoking.
This is what Dr Chris Steele, a British general
practitioner and the resident doctor on the popular UK TV show, This
Morning said, "About a third of people gain quite a lot of weight when
they give up smoking. Another
third gain a small amount of weight and another third don't put on any weight
at all". Dr Steele runs smoker's clinic for more than 3 decades and has
lectured all over the world.
So the question is then why to people gain weight
when they quit smoking? According to Dr Steele, Nicotine suppresses the
appetite and increases the metabolic rate. Furthermore, an average female
smoker puts a cigarette into her mouth about 200 times a day and so while she
is doing that, she can’t snack or eat. Thus smoking is a way of curtailing
putting food into the mouth.
He added that most smokers light up a cigarette
after a meal. The nicotine then delays gastric-emptying of the stomach making
the food stay in the stomach longer making the smoker feeling full longer and
thus relieving the urge to snack in between meals.
So when a person quit smoking, the stomach
empties more quickly and so the temptations of snacking in between meals
become much more apparent.
Although people may gain weight when they quit
smoking, smoking itself does not cause weight loss. Therefore taking up
smoking will not help
you to stay slim.
As for smokers who do not want to quit because
they fear that they will put on weight, Dr Steel offers this advise, "Firstly,
people should realize that continuing to smoke is a very dangerous way of
maintaining weight. Furthermore, it is only helpful in about 30% of cases. If
you smoke 20 sticks a day, you are spending 60 to 100 minutes each day
smoking. So why not devote that time to exercising for weight maintenance
instead?"
Click
here to quit smoking now.
Best Wishes
