Corrine Fournier (FGCU): Teen Smoking

Colette Powers, from Westchester County started smoking with friends when she was just sixteen years old. Her father always smoked, so she knew her parents couldn’t get too upset. Colette would even light up on the back porch with her dad and thought it helped create a bond between them.  Although both of Colette’s parents disapproved of her smoking, Megan Powers, her mother sensed that it wouldn’t help to force the issue. There are countless stories of teens that smoke and experience long term effects from smoking. This story illustrates that teen smoking is a big problem and has become increasingly popular. Many teens do smoke and experience early expose from family and friends. Research needs to be made to protect them early on that way they don’t pick up this bad habit. Smoking is detrimental to a teen’s health and continues to lead to tobacco addiction, however, there are a wide range of methods that can help a teen battle his or her addiction. The use of tobacco introduces foreign chemicals into the blood and encouraging infection deteriorating the body.  It is known to be very addictive from the nicotine inside and is harmful to the body from the chemicals released. Stated in the book Health & Wellness “these chemicals include acetone, acrolein, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, races of various mineral and radioactive elements, acids, ical compounds and other substances”. There are many consequences with teen smoking and putting these poisons into the body. Smoking leads to the development of health problems like emphysema, stroke, and even heart disease. Infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis are increased. According to Elsevier, the author of The Lancet, “those who partake for long periods of time will seriously damage their cardiovascular system and increase their risk of developing cancer. Teenage smokers live in the moment and don’t think about their health ten to twenty years down the line. They are young, feel invincible, and don’t think about these important measures. Teen smokers are just harming themselves in the end. Many different types of cancer can result such as lung, to throat and even stomach. Teenagers don’t consider about the price of smoking. In the back of their minds they think they won’t be just another statistic.  Teens need to consider the cost and believe that something can happen to them. Besides long term health problems, there are immediate changes to the appearance and wellness of the teen. Stated in the article from Kidsheath.org “teen smokers experience bad skin because the smoking restricts blood vessels it can prevent oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin, which is why smokers often appear pale and unhealthy”. In addition, smoking leads to bad breath and there is nothing worse than talking to someone with a persistent odor.  A bad scent is left on clothes and hair because the smoke tends to linger. Athletic performance is reduced causing the smoker to have a rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath.  It is disappointing to wheeze, cough, and know that the physical stamina that once was there is now gone. This source states that “smoking affects the body’s ability to produce collagen, so common sport injuries, such as damage to tendons and ligaments will heal slower in smokers than in nonsmokers”. Teen smokers are in greater jeopardy of injury and slower healing time. The risk of illnesses are increased because teen smokers bodies lack the nutrients needed to grow, develop, and fight of illness properly. These teens can catch colds and even the flu.      

    With all of this information available to teens about the dangers of smoking teens continue to do so. Bruce Epstein confirmed that “in the United States, 6 million teens continue to smoke, despite their knowledge of potential health hazards, and studies show that 75 percent of teens who begin smoking in high school are still smoking five years later”. Teenagers light up for various reasons whether it is from the temptation or the peer pressure to looking cool and enhancing their appeal.  Smoking can be encouraged by parents, siblings and even more so by friends. This gives the teen a greater chance not only to start smoking but to also develop it as a daily habit.  Affirmed by Kidsheath.org “statistics show that nine out of ten tobacco users start before they are eighteen years old and that most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted”.  Nine out of ten is a huge percentage and teens today need to notice that they are not an exception to the rule. The odds are in their favor.  According to Bruce Epstein, “teens who smoke may feel they are immune to the negative health effects of smoking, but in fact they have more respiratory illnesses and more evidence of reduced lung growth than their nonsmoking peers”. Teens don’t realize the seriousness of smoking and the long term effects that it causes particularly on the lungs. Nonsmokers are not polluting their lungs with toxins keeping them clean, healthy, and growing. It’s interesting that several studies are established and that teens who have attention deficit disorder are twice as likely to start smoking as those who do not. These teens may smoke to compensate for their impairments and use it as a way to cope with the disorder. Susan Dominus stated in Teen Smoking: An Overview, “anti-tobacco activist’s studies have shown that teens suffering from depression are more receptive to tobacco advertising and more likely to experiment”.  The motivations of smokers fall into six categories according to The American Cancer Society which include stimulation, handling, pleasurable relaxation, reducing negative feelings, craving, and habit. Some smokers say that smoking helps wake them up in the morning and use it as a stimulant while others simply enjoy to handle objects and items such as lighters. Relaxation is also added and forms of pleasures are created. In the book Health & Wellness it is printed that “one-third of smokers say they smoke because it helps them deal with stress, anger, fear, anxiety, or pressure”. Teens can crave tobacco and often feel the desire to smoke. Lighting up can be done without being aware of whether or not the teen wants to smoke and is just done by habit. Once started, it’s extremely hard to stop. Retrieved from Kidsheath.org “smoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. The body and mind quickly become so used o the nicotine hat a person needs to have it just to feel normal”. In the article Public Health Professor Explores Efforts to Help Teenagers to Quit Smoking, the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale is also known as NDSS  and was developed to measure how individuals become addicted to nicotine. They are trying to help teens quit such a health harming pattern.  This source stated that  the “NDSS examined five factors, the drive to smoke, tolerance to the effects of nicotine, the regularity of the smoking, the frequency of smoking, and the priority smokers place over other activities”. The results concluded that the drive and tolerance factors were the major reasons for continued smoking. Teens are driven to smoke by the chemical stimulation in nicotine.  As the body tolerates the nicotine, it then continuously craves it. It is very important to note that there aren’t signs of declines and that the teen smoking rates are still increasing along with health troubles.  According to Jeremy Craig “in the United States, 3.5 million adolescents smoke, and even in their teens, adolescents smokers develop signs of cardiovascular disease, which will be compounded with other smoking associated health problems as they grow into adulthood”. This unappealing habit needs to be tossed away.In the article What Works to Prevent Adolescent Smoking it is stated that the National Cancer Institute has explored characteristics of programs for research tested intervention programs. NCI’s methods were to identify adolescent smoking prevention programs. Working researches applied criteria to all programs in their database using a structured form for general information, participants, interventions, outcomes, and quality.  Information was then assessed for common themes and contrasts in category. Programs that met NCI’ s standards include Project Towards No Tobacco Use, Pathways to Heath, Native FACETS, Kentucky Adolescent Tobacco Prevention Project, and Sembrando Salud. Some of these programs were targeted towards particular social demographic groups. Efforts are out there to help teenagers to quit smoking give up such an unhealthy habit. According to Sherman and Primack “school based programs are needed to address current issues in tobacco control. To improve chances of success, these programs may wish to target certain specific high-risk demographic groups, use professional health educators or trained community members, and build methods of updating material”.It’s never too late to quit! There are so many reasons not to smoke such as a having a sore throat, breathing problems, feeling tired and out of breath, stained teeth, wrinkles and more. Smoking becomes an expense.  It’s proven that having a pack a day could cost you over $1500 a year. Let’s not forget about all of the health risks like heart or lung disease or even putting others at risk for secondhand smoke. There are ways a smoker can prepare themselves ahead of time and have steps to make quitting easier. Picking a stop date is a great way to start. Quit dates are what most smoking cessation plans center around. It’s the day that the smoker stops smoking completely.   They can cut back on the number of times they smoke each day by choosing a time when things in their life change. Being on break from school is a perfect time to start; the smoker can eliminate stresses at school, work, or home. The nicotine replacement therapy is also a good possibility. Patches, gum, nasal sprays, or inhalers contain nicotine to reduce the symptoms of nicotine withdrawals when quitting smoking. Making a list of the reasons why to quit and keeping the list handy so they can look at it when having cravings. The teen can keep a track of where, when, and why they smoke and throw away all the tobacco or lighters and anything else that will keep them from their smoking habit. Suggest telling friends about the quit and use them as support. When the stop date arrives, STOP! Planning rewards is a great idea as well. They can buy themselves something nice for every tobacco free month. There are different approaches to quitting and teens can stop smoking on their own pace. Support groups are sponsored by organizations like the American Cancer Society. So don’t give up! There are so many things to do instead of smoke which include chewing sugarless gun or even sunflower seeds.  Call up a friend to make plans to go to the mall or even to see a movie. Those are both places where smoking is not allowed and temptation will be reduced. Take a walk or work out and remind yourself why you want to quit.  Staying smoke free will give a whole lot of more everything, including energy, better performance and looks, more money in the pockets, and in the long run, more life to live.Teen smoking shouldn’t be taken lightly. Tobacco is known to be very addictive from the nicotine inside. It causes numerous health related issues including lung cancer to heart disease. Changes to the appearance and wellness are effected as well resulting in the teen to have bad skin and reduced athletic performance. Countless methods such as the nicotine replacement theory are designed to help a teen with their struggle to quit. Colette, now twenty years old has still not given up smoking. She knows from watching her father how hard it is to shake off the habit after smoking for so many years yet intends to quit soon. Her lack of energy is the reason behind it. The only way that really helps a person avoid the problems associated with smoking is to just stay smoke free!

This entry was posted on 16. March 2010 at 22:59 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.