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Scientists found that obesity rates are up because smoking rates is down. Now nonsmokers make up a greater proportion of the population than smokers. And nonsmokers weigh more than smokers.

According to studies smokers burn more calories because nicotine speeds up their metabolic rates. It may also break their enthusiasm for food. This may be why smokers tend to weigh less than nonsmokers and gain weight when they quit.

Smokers weigh less because they consume less and they gain weight upon stopping smoking as a consequence of consuming more. Some studies of daily caloric intake suggesting that smokers may, in fact, consume more calories per day than nonsmokers.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys for 1971-75 and 1999-2002, in which health professionals interviewed and examined thousands of people nationwide, rates among men ages 25 to 39 fell from 50.4% to 32.3%. Among women that age, rates fell from 39.9% to 28.3%.

But a 2007 study found that the drop in smoking rates couldn't well explain the rise in obesity. Katherine Flegal of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, projected that if smoking rates hadn't decreased, the obesity rate would have been 22.4% for men ages 25-39 in the 1999-2002 survey, compared with the actual rate of 23.8%. It would have been 30.2% for women in that age groups lower than the actual rate of 30.4%.

Susan Roberts of Tufts University said that, although people gain weight when they quit smoking, often they are gaining back weight they lost when they started.

Cheap Cigarette smoking and excess body weight, both contribute to poor health and risk of death.