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Young smokers feel no pressure

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Published Date: 20 January 2009
By Angus Howarth
CHILDREN smoke because they enjoy it, and not because friends tell them it's "cool", a study published today shows.
They start smoking for their own desire and curiosity, rather than the traditional concept of being forced into it by "peer pressure".

The 11-year study, funded by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, found many adolescents smoked as a stress
-reliever, or simply because they liked it and wanted to.

The researchers at Liverpool John Moores University also showed that smoking within families was a key influence, with many young people particularly highlighting their parents smoked as a coping strategy.

The study tracked 250 children from the ages of five to 16 to examine the factors that contribute to experimental smoking. The findings included that 99 per cent of regular smokers lived with at least one smoker and that young people aged 14-16 living in deprived areas were 95 per cent more likely to try smoking.

A researcher, Dr Susan Woods, said: "They say they enjoy it and get pleasure from it, even though they are aware of the health dangers. In fact, they have very good knowledge about the health dangers from primary school upwards, so the health messages are getting through."





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  • Last Updated: 19 January 2009 9:21 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Tobacco
 
1

Charles Linskaill,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 02:01:58


At Last!! Some sense on the Matter, Now go tell our soo called,..."Scottish Government" Who are 'obsessed' in thinking otherwise!!
2

Charles Linskaill,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 02:03:11


At Last!! Some sense on the Matter, Now go tell our soo called,...

...."Scottish Government" Who are 'obsessed' in thinking otherwise!!
3

drunken proffet,

Tassy 20/01/2009 10:33:50
Well I must admit I would not like to see the kids fall into the smoking habit. However they are right, smoking kills and in some circumstances stress kills even quicker.
4

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 10:36:54
Now what have I said all along?
5

DeniseX,

20/01/2009 10:38:55
Perhaps some anti-smokers should take up smoking to relieve their stress.
6

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 10:42:53
#5:

I'd be happy if they just shut up and dissappeared, taking their stupid, bigotted views with them.
7

DeniseX,

20/01/2009 11:53:47
Roy Castle is known to have smoked cigars in his younger days. Maybe that was to relieve the stress of blowing his trumpet.
8

Captain Flint,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 13:08:21
Yep. Right. No peer pressure at all. None whatsoever. Each and every child who begins smoking makes an independent decision to do so, totally oblivious to any societal or cultural pressures, and without any possible influence from the tobacco industry... This is like the argument that tobacco advertising doesn't make anyone smoke ...

Just who is kidding whom here?
9

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 13:47:46
#8:

Well I can categorically tell you that the tobacco industry had absolutely no influence on my decision to start smoking.
10

Captain Flint,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 15:10:19
#9. Of course not. I bet that you shut your eyes and put your hands over your ears when the adverts come on the telly, don't you? Just in case you're subliminally influenced to buy something?

Ask yourself why the global tobacco industry spends billions of pounds marketing its products each year. Is it because they can afford to chuck their money around even though they know that it doesn't work? Or could it be because they know damn fine that it does work, especially on children and young people, the very market sector that they have to appeal to in order to keep their business going?

Let's be honest here. We all want to believe that we're totally autonomous consumers, all happily making up our own minds independent of the admen. But the fact remains that advertising and marketing is extremely effective in making us buy things that we previously hadn't even thought of - that's why companies and businesses spend such huge sums of money on advertising..

And the age group most susceptible to advertising? That's right - children and adolescents. Furthermore, every single child looks around before he or she does anything at all, to make sure that they're going to keep in with the in-crowd. Smoking within the family is a key factor, but to ignore the influence of friends and peers is just plain stupid.

These children are kidding themselves. More fool them.
11

DeniseX,

20/01/2009 16:38:08
The biggest advert for smoking is all the anti-smoking propaganda on TV. These are responsible for the rise in the number of youngsters smoking.
12

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 16:59:30
#10:

In those days, I didn't hate adverts anywhere near the level that I do now, because they were produced in a far more mature way. These days I channel hop because I can't stand the inanity of them all.

The only tobacco related adverts I remember on TV are "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet. The Mild cigar from Benson and Hedges", which was hardly likely to encourage a teenager to take up smoking. Neither were the adverts for pipe tobacco.

Of course, Formula One was tobacco sponsored but as kids, we were more interested in the colour schemes than the product being advertised. You have to admit that the John Player Special Lotus looked as cool as hell in it's black and gold livery!

Tobacco advertising is all about encouraging brand loyalty than encouraging people to take up smoking. At least it always has been during the time I can remember. The days of tobacco companies claiming that smoking cigarettes is beneficial to health in any way were well over by the 1950s---quite some time before I was born incidentally!
13

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 20/01/2009 17:01:07
#11:

I'd say that the two biggest adverts for smoking are the crowds of people standing outside pubs and clubs doing it, coupled with the fact that the propaganda has now made it taboo and hence a natural attraction to a great many teenagers.
14

Tim85,

Lancs, England 20/01/2009 17:21:24
The conclusions of this study substantiate what many of us have known for a while. Young people are told that smoking isn't enjoyable - unlike other drugs, there is no 'high', and that smoking is only enjoyable to smokers because they are satisfying a craving. They young people try it for themselves and realise this simply isn't true(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine (see 'Psychoactive effects'). The anti-smoking mantra is shown to be demonstrably false through personal experience, so who can blame young people if they begin to treat the pronouncements and edicts of anti-smoking groups with a considerable degree of suspicion?
15

mandyv,

20/01/2009 19:42:02
Well I cannot believe that article was not hid under the carpet.
If you google the rise in anti-depressants, you will soon work out it follows the antis around, now I wonder why.
As I have said a million (lol) times before, we do not all want to live on anti-depressants, thank you.
I would never encourage children to start smoking though, because of the expense of it.
At school one day, my daughter did come home really upset, and told me, my legs would drop off. After asking how many people does "mummy" know who smokes, had no legs (none). That is why children should not be force fed propaganda, the truth yes, but this has gone way, way, way, beyond that.
16

DeniseX,

20/01/2009 19:48:05
#15 mandyv. If anti-smoking groups told the truth, perhaps youngsters would not want to start. Nobody believes a liar.
17

Belinda-2,

20/01/2009 22:53:12
10 I am a little confused about this but I don't think it is being claimed that there are no outside influences at all, because it makes a point that many young smokers already have a smoker in the family.

Trying things out is not only a result of advertising. There is no advertising of illegal drugs and yet demand is high.

I think it is just saying that traditional studies have sought to downplay the element of volition in a young person's act of smoking, assuming none of it comes from within.

 

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