Purpose: This study aims to investigate gender differences in tobacco quit rates and weight gain among employees undergoing a cessation program with a health and wellness coach.
Design: This project was a retrospective observational study of an employee population.
Setting: All data were collected during health coaching sessions by nationally certified health coaches.
Subjects: 211 men and women (116 males, 95 females, age 51.3 ± 9.9 years) enrolled in a Tobacco cessation health coaching program (TCHC) between January 2020 and December 2021.
Measures: Data were compared between genders for quit rate, weight, body mass index (BMI), and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) usage across 12-month follow-ups.
Analysis: Descriptive statistics, repeated measures ANOVA, and independent samples t-test.
Results: Significantly more men than women successfully quit by the goal date set with their coach (P < 0.05). There was a significant reduction in tobacco use across 12 months, leading to the participant's quit date (P < 0.001). Women (Weight lost ± SD= 1.49 lbs. ±16.06 lbs.) lost significantly more weight than men (0.7 lbs. ± 8.5 lbs.; P < 0.001). NRT users lost significantly more weight than non-users (P = .007).
Conclusion: Health and wellness coaching was effective for participants to successfully stop tobacco use while in this program by their quit date. The coaching program also elicited weight loss while achieving smoking cessation for both men and women.
Keywords: employee wellness; health coaching; tobacco cessation; weight management.