14 DAY TRIAL // A new research shows that a lot of college women do not want to quit smoking, because they think this habit keeps their weight under control. Popular belief has it that, when you kick the habit, your weight spirals out of control, and most of the college-aged girls between 18 and 24 years old who smoke do not even want to quit lighting up. But the study also reveals that a more effective approach in keeping body weight in check is to dialog with and support these young women, and to make them get a positive body image.
“A lot of college – age women report smoking to keep their weight down and for body image reasons, and we think that by providing them with the tools to make them feel better about themselves, it alleviates some of those stressors,” Temple University Center for Obesity Research and Education Clinical Psychologist Melissa Napolitano, who has been part of the new investigation, explained.
“Smoking has psychological and psychosocial implications, especially for young women. We wanted to design a program that would not only address the physical addiction by providing a nicotine patch, but would also address those social and behavioral aspects as well,” Napolitano, who is also a College of Health Professions associate professor of kinesiology and public health, added.
In the first stage of a two-phase study, researchers asked focus groups about the reasons that kept them bound to smoking, and learned that most young women mentioned stress, peer pressure and weight management as the dominant factors. The girls also said that being part of a group-based social support network would be very helpful for them, in their bid to quit the habit.
The second stage of the study, dubbed Fit to Quit, involved 24 girls being randomly assigned to either a supervised group-exercise program, or a body image group-counseling session. The participants were also provided with nicotine patches, to help take some of the edge off quitting.
Some eight weeks later, the girls were asked to come in for assessment, and the researchers found out that those in the body image group counseling were more than twice as likely as the others to have permanently renounced smoking. They registered an 18 percent success rate, whereas the others in the supervised group-exercise program only registered an eight percent quitting rate.
“A lot of times, we would try to call participants to remind them of different sessions, and they would respond back via text or e-mail, so we took that message and used avenues like text messaging and the Internet not just as a means of getting information out, but for support as well,” Napolitano shared. “Our hope is to make programs like Fit to Quit sustainable on other college campuses, because we know that if we can give young people the tools they need to make better health decisions, it helps them not only improve their health but it also helps them do better academically.”