Tobacco Use and Children




It is an interesting fact that nearly every first use of tobacco happens before school graduation. In some respect it is good news for those who went through school years without a cigarette: as a rule, people who have not tried it as teens never come to smoking in adult years.

Although the society did its best to prevent children from smoking and the total number of young smokers is really going down, the surveys still say that 50% of all high school students have tried cigarettes. It has also been reported that one in seven high school boys and over 2% of girls use some form of smokeless tobacco.

Younger smokers have higher risks to stay smoking for the rest of their lives because they develop long-term nicotine addiction which is stronger than in people who start smoking later. The statistics shows that 90% of all adult smokers come to the habit before they turn 19. Each day more than 3,500 young people start smoking and 1,100 become regular smokers. About 30% of all these people will die in the future from smoking-related diseases.

The reason why many people use tobacco in the early age is because teens and children are more influenced and more vulnerable than adults. A boy wants to look cool, wants to be attractive and strong and if a TV commercial shows that a big tuff man smokes a cigarette after which he receives a kiss from a gorgeous woman, the boy understands that the only thing he has to go is to get that brand of cigarettes and smoke them. In fact the young people do not even realize how many barriers they have to go through in order to stay away from smoking: TV commercials, movies, billboards with advertisements, the opinion of friends – all of these make an impact on a weak child’s mind.

The teens are not explained and they do not realize the danger of smoking, the danger of all the diseases connected to it: cancer, emphysema, blindness and impotence are problems for adults and children do not think that smoking can bring a disease on them too. As soon as they begin smoking minor health problems occur including coughing, shortness of breath, respiratory problems, reduced physical activity, poor lung growth and addiction to nicotine.

Being very confident in themselves young people are absolutely sure they can quit any time. Besides, almost all of them start smoking and think that it will not last, but the statistics shows that 60 people out of 100 keep smoking for 7-9 years after they graduate while only 3 high school students out of 100 think they will be smoking for at least five year after have touched the first cigarette.

Here are a few more numbers about tobacco use among children. The data is taken from the 2007 CDC survey at the www.cancer.org: although the numbers are lower than in 2005, there is still a lot of work to be done to take the teens from the hands of nicotine. Besides, only high school students were taken into consideration: the percent of smokers who have dropped out of school is higher.

•    Every fourth student in the country (26%) uses some type of tobacco product: cigarette, cigar, smokeless tobacco, etc.
•    20% of high school students smoke cigarettes. Girls smoke almost as much as boys do. Among all the smokers 23%  are white, 12% Afro-American, 17% Hispanic/Latino, and 11% Asian students.
•    8% of the students use smokeless tobacco or spit: 13% of all boys and 2% of girls in American school admit they chew tobacco.
•    14% of high school students have had a cigar in the last 30 days before the survey. Boys were more likely to do so (19%) than girls (8%).
•    Half of the young smokers said they tried to quit within a year before the survey, but failed to give up smoking completely.
•    High school students also try alternative tobacco products: pipes (4%), bidis (3%) and kreteks (3%).

Elisa Jackson

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Posted on August 10, 2009 
Filed Under Facts on Smoking, Smoking and Youth

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