Amidst all the bad news — the failing U.S. economy, continued violence in Iraq — comes some truly positive news: teen smoking is at its lowest rate since the early 1990s.
In fact, teens have been smoking less and less for 12 years now. According to an annual survey of adolescent behavior reported recently in the New York Times, conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, most teens think smoking is, quite simply, a drag.
More than 70 percent of the teens surveyed called smoking “a dirty habit.” Most said they’d rather not date a smoker. And two-thirds said choosing to smoke “reflects poor judgment.”
Good for you, teens. You figured out that the tobacco industry’s longtime message — that smoking is cool and makes you sexy — is just a smokescreen. The truth is, it’s been known for years that smoking is one of the worst things you can do to your body. It can give you cancer, emphysema, heart attack, or stroke. It can make you smell bad. It can lower your immunity so that you get sick more often.
When I was a teen I thought smoking was gross, too. My mom used to smoke every once in a while and I would pester her every time she lit up.
Then, in my 20s, I found myself hanging around smokers and thought, “What could be the harm in just a few?” After all, it DID look pretty cool. It wasn’t fun at first. But it got more fun very, very quickly. And, over the next few years, I found myself wanting to smoke. Even if it was just one or two cigarettes — I still wanted them. How did that happen? I wondered. I’d always thought you had to smoke a lot to become addicted.
Later I learned that wasn’t true. That even one or two cigarettes can get people hooked on nicotine, the main addictive ingredient in tobacco. And kicking the nicotine habit is one of the hardest to break.
So the news that teens are steering clear of cigarettes is very, very welcome. Championing teens’ smart choices is one of our key goals at BodiMojo. Keep those good choices coming!
– Contributed by Karen Feldscher, BodiMojo mom
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