Smoking, Stress Eating, and Body Weight: The Moderating Role of Perceived Stress

Abstract

Background: Some individuals respond to stress with increased food intake while others reduce their food intake. Smokers often report using smoking to cope with stress and have a lower body weight than nonsmokers on average. Thus, smokers may tend to eat less when stressed, which may partly explain their lower body weight as compared to nonsmokers. In turn, nonsmokers may tend to eat more when stressed, which may partly explain their higher body weight as compared to smokers. Objective: To examine the interplay between smoking and stress-related eating. Methods: N = 314 (78% female, 14% smokers) participants reported whether they were current smokers, their body height and weight and completed the Salzburg Stress Eating Scale and the Perceived Stress Scale. Results: Smokers did not differ from nonsmokers in body mass index (BMI), stress eating and perceived stress. When perceived stress was high, however, nonsmokers reported eating more and smokers reported eating less than usual. Moreover, in individuals with high perceived stress, being a smoker was indirectly related to lower BMI through eating less when stressed and being a nonsmoker was indirectly related to higher BMI through eating more when stressed. Conclusion: Smokers most likely use smoking instead of eating to cope with stress and, therefore, food intake and body weight decrease in stressed smokers. After smoking cessation, these individuals may be more susceptible to weight gain when—similar to nonsmokers—eating instead of smoking is used to cope with stress.