Teenagers and Smoking
Usually, people, who start smoking, start it in their teen years. Most tobacco companies are very eager to get teenagers addicted to their brand of cigarettes as a lot of adult smokers die and hence those companies suffer. These tobacco companies are always in need of teenagers taking up smoking so that they can continue to make business and flourish. Most tobacco companies utilize different mass mediums to approach and influence teenagers into becoming smokers. (The Lung Association, n. p.)
Media’s Influence
The mass media is there to affect, influence, and persuade people. To think that people can ignore and not adopt the harmful stuff shown by the media because it isn’t real isn’t true. Adults may be able to differentiate what to adopt and how far not to go but teenagers find it hard to distinguish between what’s wrong and what’s right, what to adopt, and what not to adopt. Ideally, teenagers would disregard all the negative advertisement that is aimed at them as all the actors and models are in made-up scenarios and hence the teenagers should be able to see that. But that is not how an adult human brain works, let alone the young and impressionable minds of teenagers, usually the ads targeted at the youth always play upon elements that are familiar and appealing to the teenage minds, and hence they manage to influence teens into taking up harmful activities such as smoking. Therefore the advertisements are not real scenarios but they manage to fool the youth and they work in such a way that they even influence the teenage mind subconsciously and succeed in luring teenagers into thinking smoking is cool and finally to start smoking. (Claire Fagin, n. p.)
Facts and Stats on Teen Smoking
- Daily, somewhere between 82,000 to 99,000 teenagers all around the world take up smoking (The Lung Association, n. p.)
- Almost 80% of adult smokers started smoking before the tender age of 18
- Each day almost 1,200 Americans die due to smoking-related diseases.
- Daily, almost 3,000 young people below 18 become regular smokers
- Roughly 4.5 million young adults in the United States are smokers
- 5 million or more children living presently will die a premature death because their decision of becoming a smoker
- Teenagers who smoke one pack of cigarettes daily are more likely to die on an average 7 years earlier than teens who have never smoked
- Teenage smoking is the most needless reason for premature death in the United States
- Regular teenage smokers that begin smoking by grade 9 are 2.4 times more likely than their nonsmoking peers to suffer from overall poorer health and 2.4-2.7 times more likely to be coughing a lot and of having a cough with phlegm or blood
- Teens that smoke are 3.0 times more likely to be wheezing or gasping, also they are more likely to have sought a doctor for an emotional or psychological disorder
- Almost all first time smoking experiences take place before the smoker’s first high school graduation
- Most teenage smokers become addicted to nicotine and even if some of them want to quit they are incapable of it due to the addiction
- Teenagers who indulge in drugs and alcohol consumption, usually start off with a cigarette first and later on take up the latter
- Teens who smoke are three times more likely than nonsmoker teens to indulge in alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana, and 22 times more likely to use cocaine. Smoking is also linked to other offenses such as fighting and engaging in unprotected sex.
- Teenagers who do poorly academically and suffer from low self-esteem are more likely than others to start smoking
- Teenagers who don’t come from financially stable backgrounds are more at risk of smoking than their well-to-do counterparts. (Statistics on Teens, n. p.)
Did You Know?
- Teens that smoke on a regular basis are usually addicted to nicotine, and due to that, they continue to smoke through the rest of their lives.
- Majority of the teens that smoke increases the number of cigarettes as they grow older.
- A lot more than one-third of high school students smoke regardless of the vast amount of information is on their disposal about the harms of smoking
- Teens who smoke are at risk of many health hazards face many health risks, consisting of:
- Reduction in lungs functioning well and overall growth rate.
- Poorer performance as an athlete.
- Increase in shortness of breath.
- Weaker bones.
- Heavier periods and cramps, resulting in more pain.
- An earlier than normal menopause.
- Increased chances of gastric ulcers.
- Exposure and vulnerability to Cancer of the lungs, mouth, bladder, liver, colon, etc
- Unpleasant breath
- Smoking tends to wrinkle the skin earlier than what is normal
- 70 percent or more teenagers regret that they took up smoking immediately after they start smoking and above 75 percent try to give it up at some point in their lives
- Pregnant teens are more prone to take up smoking as compared to the pregnant adults
- Needless to say smoking during pregnancy is likely to cause great harm to the unborn baby and can also create trouble at delivery. (Women’s Health care Topics, n. p.)
- The resting heartbeats of teenage smokers are two or three beats/minute faster than nonsmoker teenagers
- In teens, regular smoking is the culprit for cough and an increase in the severeness of various respiratory diseases
- Smoking can aid depression in teenagers
(Teen Culture, n. p.).
Movies Influencing teenage Smoking
Movies are used effectively to target teens into becoming smokers. Teenagers are more likely to start smoking when they see actors and models smoking on TV shows and in the movies. According to studies on smoking and movies, non-smoking teens are encouraged to smoke when they see their favorite celebrities puffing away on the TV screens. In fact, they are up to sixteen times more likely to see smoking in a positive life and about starting to smoke sometime in the very near future.
Tobacco companies are well aware of how important media can be in influencing the youth and for that reason alone, tobacco companies have paid movie producers huge amounts of money to promote their particular cigarette brands in the movies, this is also known as product placement. Tobacco companies also pay big numbers to have famous movie stars smoke their brand of cigarettes on screen.
Advertisements influencing teens to kids & teens
All Companies rely on advertisements to sell their products. The tobacco industry knows how to reach the youth and hence utilizes various strategies to make smoking appealing for teens. In 1998, in Canada alone, tobacco enterprises spent around 32 million dollars on advertising smoking and their brands. (The Lung Association, n. p.)
Cigarette advertising along with various promotional items seems to influence teenagers into smoking according to the latest researches. A survey on young adults between the ages of 12 to 17; who claimed that they didn’t plan to try smoking ever was likely to start smoking within 2 years if they had a favorite cigarette ad.
According to a report in The Journal of the American Medical Association, young adults, who owned a promotional item with a cigarette brand’s logo on it, were 2.89 times more likely to start smoking.
Research also showed that particular brands of cigarettes were more appealing to entice the younger people as compared to other brands and they are Newport, Camel, Kool, and Winston. This was because these brands were more likely to appear in teenage-based magazines. (Cigarette Ads Influence Teen Smoking, n. p.)
Other advertising gimmicks include cartoon character mascots such as Joe Camel, who was immensely popular among adolescents between the years of 1988-1991. The Joe Camel character was successful in enticing the teens to smoke and cigarette sales went up from $6 million in 1988 to $476 million in 1991. The reason, Joe Camel was so successful was because he was a mixture of cool and suave. He was something between James Bond and Don Johnson. The cartoon camel was always shown smoking and the purpose of its existence was to encourage teens into thinking that smoking was the thing to do and that it was the height of sophistication.
Once again, favorite TV people, such as cartoon characters of The Simpsons have been used in the media to make smoking look cool, almost all of The Simpsons cartoon characters, along with even children characters have shown to be smoking on the screen. Along with that, 87% of the top box office hits during 1988-1997, showed tobacco use in the movies on an average of at least five times in every movie.
The media also shows successively portrays smoking as something that grown-ups do and to become a grown-up or prove themselves as an adult, teenagers must smoke. (The Lung Association, n. p.)
The media doesn’t only target youth it also targets younger women. For instance, Virginia Slims were labeled and advertised as women’s cigarettes. Media projected billboards and magazine advertisements of Virginia Slims which all featured thin and beautiful women having a great time. As soon as six years of its launch, the number of teenage girls smokers skyrocketed and went up more than double what it was before the advertisements of Virginia slims. Usually, girls who harbor insecurities regarding their bodies start smoking in order to lose weight and the media plays an important role in projecting that image. As the ideology of the thinner the better seems to be universal, of course, these advertisements targeted at females to take up smoking in order to be thin really hits home. (Social Issues, n. p.)
Conclusion
In today’s world, thanks to the ever-growing media enterprise, huge numbers of TV channels are at our disposal, the ever-growing internet along with the unconventional media is being utilized to get our attention in every possible way and at the very slightest opportunity. We have to train our youth to be media smart. Research conducted by Dr. Primack has proven that teaching media literacy can be beneficial in convincing teens to not take up smoking. There are various factors that are behind a teenager’s decision to smoke and many of them, we cannot influence but media literacy can be taught and the process has already begun and is already showing positive results.
Students that have higher media literacy regarding smoking are less prone to becoming smokers as compared to their lesser media literate counterparts.
Media literacy is teaching teens not to fall into the trap laid out by the advertisers and it has been used to educate youngsters on alcohol along with smoking education for some time now, and it seems to be working. Although some factors like family and friends influence on encouraging smoking are often difficult to tackle, schools can at least not let the media win in corrupting the children into smoking, and hence schools should play their part in safeguarding the adults of tomorrow by persuading them not to cause havoc to their health by smoking.
Along with smoking, Primack’s researches also indicated that teaching media literacy can also have a positive impact on other negative activities such as alcohol consumption, sexual behavior, and the ever-growing and disturbing eating disorders.
The media is quite baffling even when it’s at its best and even to the sanest of people, as we grow older into mature adults, we learn to dodge harmful messages which are broadcasted by the media and learn to adapt to only what is best for us while ignoring what may cause us harm. For teenagers, though it isn’t that easy as while growing up lots of physical, emotional, and hormonal changes are taking place inside the human body and young adolescents are more like to fall into the trap that media sets out for them on various issues, smoking being a major concern along with many other issues. Here schools, parents, guardians, and older siblings can make more of an effort to educate their children and arming them with all the tools that will enable our teens to make smart decisions regarding smoking and why they shouldn’t take it up for their own good in the longer run. (Editor, n. p.)
Works Cited
Claire Fagin, ‘The Center for Nursing Advocacy, 2007. Web.
Editor in Chief, ‘Schools Need to Leverage Media Literacy to Cut Teen Smoking’, 2006, Web.
Social Issues, ‘Media Influence’, 2008. Web.
‘Statistics on Teens’, 2008, Web.
Teen Culture, 2008, Web.
The Journal of the American Medical Association, ‘Cigarette Ads Influence Teen Smoking’, 1998, Web.
The Lung Association, ‘Smoking and Tobacco’, 2006, Web.
Women’s Health care Topics, ‘Teen Smoking’, 2008. Web.