The overall decline in adult smoking has moved the tobacco industry to recruit almost one million new smokers a year, most of whom are children and adolescents.1
Tobacco advertising is targeted to children and adolescents to encourage them to begin a lifelong addiction to smoking before they are old enough to fully understand the long-term consequences.1
The average teenage smoker begins smoking by age 14 and becomes a daily smoker by age 18.1
Studies show that a person who does not begin smoking as a child or adolescent is not likely to begin as an adult.1
Adolescents with lower levels of school achievement are more likely than their peers to use tobacco.
Many girls as young as third and fourth graders are already concerned about their weight and body image, and many have already been on diets by the time they enter junior high school.
Health professionals, educators, mothers and other female role models must strike a balance between validating a young girl's concern about weight, while trying to shift focus to health, self-esteem, and well being.
More than five million smokers under age 18 alive today will eventually die as a result of smoking.2
According to the CDC, in 1999, 34.8% of all high school students reported using some type of tobacco product.3
1 Things You Should Know About Children and Tobacco Use. American Academy of Pediatrics. 1997.2
2 MMWR. 1996;45(44).
3 MMWR. 2000;49 |
