What happens if you start smoking at a premature age ?
Nobody smokes their first fag thinking they’ll be a smoker, but if you’re experimenting
it’s easy to become hooked. Most adult smokers start in their teens, and half of them will be
killed by their habit – coughing, spluttering and having heart seizures (on average, they’ll
have paid £40,000 each for the privilege).
Right now, smoking means that you’re becoming unfit, you’re getting tiny wrinkles
all round your mouth, and you’re losing lots of cash. If your boyfriend smokes too, sex
probably doesn’t feel as good as it could: cigarettes affect his erections and your sensitivity.
Cigarette smoking during childhood and adolescence produces significant health
problems among young people, including an increase in the number and severity of
respiratory illnesses, decreased physical fitness and potential effects on the rate of lung
growth and maximum lung function.
Most importantly, this is when an addiction to smoking takes hold which often persists
into and sometimes throughout adulthood. If current tobacco use patterns persist, an
estimated 6.4 million current child smokers will eventually die prematurely from a smokingrelated disease.
Reasons
smoking !
to
quit
You’ll be healthier and
less out of breath because
smoking decreases your
lung capacity.
You’ll save yourself a
packet. The average
smoker
spends
an
astonishing £27.54 a
week and £90,000 over
their
lifetime
on
cigarettes.
Use this tool to work
out how much money
you are saving by quitting
smoking.
You’ll look better. Chemicals in cigarettes restrict blood flow to your skin.
Smokers have more wrinkled and saggy faces by the time they’re in their mid-20s.
Quitting helps save the planet. Deforestation due to tobacco production accounts
for nearly 5% of overall deforestation in the developing world.
Someone who starts smoking at 15 is three times more likely to die from cancer
than someone who starts smoking in their mid-20s. Read more about the dangers of
teen smoking.
The younger you start smoking, the more damage there will be to your body as an
adult. Read more about the dangers of teen smoking.
Magazine Without Borders
Issue n°2
19