| University have found
that when it comes to quitting, a little bit of dialogue and support can
be more effective than an exercise plan in helping women not only keep
off the weight, but also stay smoke-free. "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," said Melissa Napolitano, a clinical psychologist at Temple's
Center for Obesity Research and Education.
In a two-phased study, Napolitano and a team of
researchers looked at the smoking habits and weight gain of women aged
18-24. The first phase collected data from focus groups who stated that
stress, peer pressure and weight management were the main reasons why
they smoked. Participants also felt that group-based programs that
provide ongoing social support would be instrumental in helping them
quit.
Those results laid the groundwork for the project's
next phase, dubbed Fit to Quit, a small pilot study of 24 women who were
randomly assigned to either a supervised group exercise program or body
image group counseling sessions. All women were provided with a nicotine
patch as well.
After eight weeks, the body image counseling group
showed a rate of smoking cessation that was more than double that of the
exercise group (18 percent vs. 8 percent). In addition, the body image
group lost more than three times the weight of their exercise
counterparts (3.3 pounds vs. less than a pound). These findings were
presented this week at the Society for Behavioral Medicine's annual
meeting.
"Smoking has psychological and psychosocial
implications, especially for young women," said Napolitano, an associate
professor of kinesiology and public health in the College of Health
Professions. "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."
Another aspect of the program relied on technology to
reach their population of smokers. Text message and email were used to
stay in contact with participants, more so than phone calls, because
those were the preferred methods of communication among the young women
in the study.
"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 says that the results derived from this
study have laid the groundwork for larger future studies at Temple and
nationwide that focus on smoking cessation in college age women. The
hope is to see if the results continue to hold true in studies with
larger numbers of participants.
Temple's Student Health Services supported the Fit to
Quit program, and Napolitano says it has the potential to be permanently
offered as part of the menu of health promotion services on campus.
"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." |
