English Blog Assignment

Article url: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/4/465

There has been a recent increase in cigarette consumption among women and teenage girls, despite the government’s initiative to show the public the harm smoking cigarettes could do to our body. This shows that females these days get addicted to smoking more easily than males. Some of them might be smoking because they think it’s cool or maybe they just treat smoking as an anti-depressor.

The part “Everyday 3,200 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 take up smoking (exclusive of those who are just experimenting with smoking, the 10 to12 year olds)” surprises me the most as I did not actually believe that so many teenagers actually get addicted to smoking in such a short time. This means that on the average, two teenagers take up smoking every minute!

I strongly agree that teenage smokers are very likely influenced to smoke if their parents or siblings are smokers. If teens see their parents or siblings smoke everyday, they would become curious as what it would be like to smoke and may go ahead to try it. Some teens think that smoking at this age would not harm their health much, and that they could always quit later when they reached the age when smoking will hurt them. This thinking is very wrong as when someone gets addicted to smoking, it is very difficult to quit due to withdrawal symptoms and other psychological problems. Even though teens have knowledge of these problems when they take up smoking, some of them will still go ahead and smoke. I think that being “cool” and getting “high” is not more worth as a few more years of healthy living. These personal pleasures are only temporary, and when one gets cancer because of smoking, they would come to their senses. When one smokes, he or she is not only bringing harm to him/herself. The people around them who breathe in the smoking from their cigarettes can be harmed.

Physicians removing ashtrays from their waiting room, displaying attractive antismoking posters are setting a good example to the public. However, I still think that educating teens and their parents are more important. Once they have some knowledge about teenage smoking, there would be lesser teens taking up smoking.