A member post on tobacco education efforts

● According to the Centre for Disease Control, among adults who smoke, 85 percent started when they were 21 or younger.

● Every day, almost 3,900 children under 18 years of age try their first cigarette. More than 950 of them will become new, regular daily smokers. Half of them will ultimately die from their habit.

Although many consider tobacco education to be “a high-school thing”, a significant number of young people actually start smoking in college. College students consume tobacco for a variety of reasons: stress, weight loss, social interactions…etc. Because smoking is often precipitated by social factors, and because college students’ social groups often revolve around school, school-based programs are powerful in preventing young people from having their first cigarette and in motivating those who are already smoking quit. A University of Southern California review of more than 30 school programs and found that they can reduce existing youth smoking by as much as 20 percent while also effectively curbing the number of young people who ever start.

Nonetheless, it can be tricky to effectively advocate and educate college-aged students about the harms of tobacco. After all, these are educated and independent young people that have pre-existing personal beliefs and can form their own opinions. Therefore, effective tobacco education programs should be comprehensive in addressing a variety of issues:

               

• Education about the immediate and long-term undesirable physiologic, cosmetic, and social consequences of tobacco use.

• Information about the reasons teens begin to smoke, such as a desire for maturity and acceptance,

and should offer them more positive means to achieve these same goals.

• Development of personal skills, such as assertiveness, confidence, and problem-solving skills, that

will aid students in avoiding tobacco use as well as other risky behaviors.

Importantly, to reinforce this educational effort, schools should enforce policies that forbid smoking or other tobacco use by students, staff, or visitors on campus or at school activities, and provide smokers with cessation information and assistance. The goals of Hopkins Kicks Butts are to educate people about the harms of tobacco use and to create a smoke-free environment for students, faculty, and staff. Today, that mission continues.

HKB Member Blog- Health Effects of Tobacco Use

Health Effects of Tobacco Use

There is an abundance of detrimental health effects of tobacco use.

Tobacco use currently leads to 20% of deaths in the US annually, or in other words, 443,000 deaths per year.

There are many cancers, associated with tobacco use, including cancer of the: bladder, cervix, esophagus, kidneys, larynx, oral cavity, pancreas, pharynx, stomach, and lungs.

Tobacco use is a cause of lung cancer and leads to approximately 80% of women’s lung cancer deaths and 90% of men’s lung cancer deaths. Women are 13 times more likely to obtain lung cancer if smoking tobacco, and men are 23 times more likely to do so.

Smoking also increases the risk of lung diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis, chronic airway obstruction and leads to one being 13 times more likely to die from chronic obstructive lung diseases.   

Tobacco use additionally harms ones cardiovascular health, for smoking is a cause of coronary heart disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and increases one’s risk of obtaining peripheral vascular disease.

Smoking is also attributed to infertility, and has adverse impact on young ones, including: preterm delivery, still birth, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome, also known as SIDS.

It is evident that there is a dearth of health reasons why one should not smoke tobacco. Hopefully this will move people to not start the habit, and quit if they have! Remember, HKB is on your side!!

Source:

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/