Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004

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  And government taxes on tobacco may be contributing to the weight problem.

Most everyone has heard America has a serious weight problem. In fact, says the American Obesity Association, about 125 million Americans are overweight; 60 million are obese.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has identified a number of causes for the nation's "epidemic" of obesity, but generally, the CDC defines obesity and overweight as an "energy imbalance" that "involves eating too many calories and not getting enough physical activity."

Fast food has been identified as especially contributing to Americans' increasing waistlines. But, according to a report in Canada's National Post newspaper, there is another culprit: High tobacco taxes.

How so? It's because the taxes are doing exactly what they were designed to do—encourage people to quit smoking. And when they do, the appetites of ex-smokers tend to get healthier too.

"Higher cigarette taxes and higher cigarette prices have caused more smokers to quit — but these smokers seem to have begun eating more as a result,” write Michael Grossman and Inas Rashad in the American public policy journal The Public Interest.

Unintended Consequences

Grossman, who is a professor at City University in New York, told the Post his research will make it doubly difficult for policymakers on the state and federal level to decide which is worse, smoking or obesity.

"According to our research, each 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes produces a 2 percent increase in the number of obese people, other things being equal," the researchers wrote.

Since 1980, when obesity began to spike, cigarettes have risen in price by an inflation-adjusted 164 percent (taxes now account for about 70 percent of the price of cigarettes in Canada). That has translated into a 20 percent growth in obesity, which places tobacco prices just behind the proliferation of fatty fast food as the leading contributors to larger belt sizes.

You may have heard lots of ex-smokers declare that "food tastes better" without the ever-present aftertaste of tobacco in their mouths. And you may have heard ex-smokers complain, "I've gained weight since I quit smoking."

They're not merely over dramatizing or imagining things. The cravings and sensations are real.

David Lau, a University of Calgary endocrinologist and president of Obesity Canada, told the Post that when a person quits smoking, that can trigger dramatic metabolic changes which often lead to increased weight gain.

"There is definitely a physiological explanation for why teenage girls resort to smoking as a means of weight control," he said.

For instance, smoking blocks a protein lipoprotein lipase, that helps hoard fat for energy. When a person stops smoking, the protein kicks back into high-gear, leading to a weight gain. "It's not just because they’re substituting food for cigarettes," Lau said.

Doubts

However, Lau would not go so far as to back Grossman's conclusions. Lau says it is "naďve" to believe taxes cause obesity, and called the relationship "distant and weak."

"I think the two are not really related," Lau said.

And Carol Sutherland-Brown, manager of cessation and protection in Health Canada's Tobacco Control Program, says obesity is something to watch but getting people to quit smoking is more important.

"It's a concern, but I think the benefits of quitting smoking far outweigh what is often a negligible weight gain," she told the Post.

Yet statistics provided by Canada's health ministries may help prove the conclusions of Grossman and Rashad. Some 90 percent of ex-smokers gain anywhere from five to seven pounds. Ten percent gain 30 pounds or more, says Health Canada data cited by the Post.

The smoking rates in Canada and the U.S. are similar, said the paper, and Canada's obesity rate is expected to mirror that of its southern neighbor within 10 years.

Ill Effects of Social Engineering

Grossman said his research sought to factor out the effects of income, education, age, race, sex, family size, local cost of fast food and other socioeconomic factors, so he could isolate the effect of tobacco taxes on obesity. "But you can never say with 100 percent certainty that this is a causal relationship," he said.

Like other critics of meddling by politicians, Grossman says his conclusions highlight the oft-realized untoward effects of so much social engineering.

"Cigarette smoking is an important cause of a lot of diseases, and we wouldn’t suggest that taxes should be lowered in order to get people to smoke more so they won’t gain weight. That’s not our message. Our message is that there are unintended consequences of public policies," he said.

There are other examples of unseen ill effects of social policymaking. In the U.S., for instance, raising the legal age for young people to be able to purchase alcohol to curb underage drinking resulted in fewer alcohol purchases by young people. But it led to an increase in marijuana use by the same age group.

"If you do want to discourage people from smoking, you might at the same time have to do other things in order to prevent these side effects," said Grossman.

Health Canada sees tobacco taxing as a "delicate balancing act" designed to discourage use but keeping prices low enough to prevent contraband and black market sales.

And there is anecdotal evidence Grossman and Rashad may be on to something. Smoking in Canada has fallen from about 33 percent of the population in 1986 to about 20 percent in 2002. Taxes have risen on cigarettes during that period, as has obesity among the population.

While the smoking data can be off as much as 30 percent, according to figures cited by the Post, most people agree smoking has fallen off and obesity has increased throughout the country (and in the U.S.) since 1980.

Coincidence? Maybe, but it's a concept worth another look.

Editor's note: