1. The female weight-control smoker: A profile
- Author
-
James C. Tate, Cynthia S. Pomerleau, Emily Ehrlich, Karen A. Flessland, Ovide F. Pomerleau, and Judith L. Marks
- Subjects
Adult ,Nicotine ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Diet, Reducing ,Personality Inventory ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Appetite ,Weight Gain ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,medicine ,Humans ,Disordered eating ,Psychiatry ,media_common ,Motivation ,Binge eating ,General Neuroscience ,Smoking ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Middle Aged ,Abstinence ,Substance Withdrawal Syndrome ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,chemistry ,Disinhibition ,Anorectic ,Female ,Smoking Cessation ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,Cotinine ,Weight gain ,medicine.drug ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
Hypothesizing the existence of a subgroup of female smokers for whom nicotine masks, and abstinence unmasks, a tendency toward hyperphagia and perhaps even subthreshold disordered eating, we compared female “weight-control smokers” (WC; n = 46) and “non-weight-control smokers” (NWC; n = 52) on smoking- and eating-related variables. We also examined the relationship between weight-control smoking and withdrawal symptomatology during 48hours of nicotine abstinence (n = 23). Although WC were not more depressed, anxious, or nicotine-dependent than NWC, they were significantly more likely to report weight gain and increased hunger during abstinence; they also scored higher on Cognitive Restraint and Disinhibition (Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire). The expected correlation of cotinine with weight emerged for NWC but not for WC. Weight-control smoking correlated with increased eating during abstinence. Our findings suggest that WC use dietary restraint as well as smoking to manage weight, and that abstinence may precipitate episodes of disinhibited or binge eating. If WC overinclude women vulnerable to excess or unpredictable eating and consequently to substantial weight gain that can be managed by nicotine, highly focused’treatment strategies may be helpful. The peculiar and fascinating combination of pharmacological and sociocultural factors involved in weight-control smoking has generated considerable research over the past few years. Despite these efforts, however, attempts to determine the net impact of weight-control smoking on treatment efficacy, both in terms of attracting such smokers to treatment and achieving sustained abstinence, have produced a somewhat confusing picture. In the current climate of interest in treatment matching, a question no less appropriate than that of whether weightcontrol smoking is likely to deter cessation efforts or promote relapse is that of whether treatment success rates for people motivated to smoke by nicotine’s anorectic properties can be improved upon; an answer to that question will
- Published
- 1993