Why eat when you can smoke?

A study done by the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and the University of South Florida tested if dietary restraint influences the drive and motivation to smoke a tobacco cigarette. One hundred and twenty eight young women were tested in their study. They were offered or not given a two hundred and forty calorie milkshake before given the chance to eat or smoke a cigarette. They found that restrained eating caused the participants to crave to smoke. This finding suggests that young women may often substitute eating with smoking on a frequent basis. This could also imply why young women who smoke are generally slender in appearance. Although it is very unhealthy and not suggested, switching eating for smoking is a popular weight loss tool in society today and is especially prevalent among young women in college who want to stay skinny. As all studies hold, this one also has limitations. The obvious limitation is that it was only tested on young women and I’m curious to know if the results would differ if a larger participant group were studied. Also, the participants were studied in a non-normal environment, which might not trigger them in the same way as smoking or eating in their normal environment would.

Reference

Smoking as alternative to eating among restrained eaters: Effect of food prime on young adult female smokers. Kovacs, Michelle A.; Correa, John B.; Brandon, Thomas H. Health Psychology, Vol 33(10), Oct 2014, 1174-1184. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0000123

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