People who quit smoking gain more than twice as much weight over a five-year period as people who continue to smoke, new research shows.
Data was collected from almost 65,000 smokers who quit the habit and 390,000 continuing smokers.
It found people who quit smoking gained an average of about 4 kilograms over five years while continuing smokers only put on 1.5 kilograms.
Seana Gall from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research said the benefits of quitting smoking still far outweighed the impact of marginal weight gain.
“The amount of weight is quite small over a five-year period, it’s 2.5 kilograms,” she said.
“What we know from studies in other places is that this amount of weight gain does not offset the many health benefits of quitting smoking.”
Dr Gall said people considering quitting should see their GP if they were concerned.
She said it was long believed that quitting smoking was associated with weight gain, but that the research showed the amount gained is negligible.
“It is a little bit paradoxical that people would be worried about a small amount of weight gain when you’re looking at the very terrible outcomes of smoking itself,” she said.
“Recent studies from Australia have shown that two thirds of smokers will actually die due to their smoking.”
She said smoking affected the way the body functioned.
“Nicotine is the major component of cigarette smoke that has this effect,” she said.
“That has effects on the brain of suppressing the appetite and increasing metabolism.
“So when you stop smoking and the nicotine goes away those changes then revert back to normal.
“People’s metabolism appears to slow down and people may eat more.”