Smoking Adds Fat to Your Belly

Smoking cigarettes creates countless health risks and we all know that. But how many people are aware that smoking can change your body shape?

We do know that a lot of women continue to smoke because they think they would gain weight if they stopped. And in reality, most smokers do gain a bit of weight when they quit. The average weight gain in the short term is about five pounds.

What most people don't know however, is that smoking actually changes your body shape. As reported in the ASH fact sheet, the people who smoke, while they may on average be a few pounds thinner than non-smokers, tend to store fat around the waist and upper torso, rather than around the hips. This is because smoking effects the endocrine system and changes the normal hormonal composition and secretion process.

So smokers have been found to have a higher waist-to-hip ratio than non-smokers. A high waist-to-hip ratio is related to lots of negative health implications.

The good news is that this higher waist-to-hip ration need not be permanent. A Swedish study found that women who stopped smoking experienced less upper torso fat deposition than would be expected by their accompanying weight gain.