Do Smoking Bans Lead to Higher Levels of Obesity?

Over the past two decades, two noticeable trends have been occurring in the United States. The country has seen a sharp decline in smoking prevalence and a drastic increase in the prevalence of obesity. Some argue that the rise in obesity can be explained in part by the decrease in smoking prevalence. In an effort to curb smoking, several states have enacted clean indoor air laws which restrict cigarette smoking indoors. If these bans have the desired effect of reducing smoking prevalence, and reduced smoking prevalence leads to higher levels of weight gain and obesity, then clean indoor air laws could have the unintended consequence of causing higher levels of weight gain and obesity. This paper uses state-level variation in smoking ban legislation in conjunction with data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine whether or not smoking ban legislation has an effect on weight gain and obesity. Our results confirm previous findings that smoking cessation does lead to higher levels of weight gain and obesity. However, we are unable to confirm whether or not smoking ban legislation has the unintended consequence of increasing levels of weight gain and obesity.