Table of Contents
Introduction
More than 46 million, nearly 21% of adults in the United States, smoke, according to a 2010 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Smoking rates remained constant from 2005 - 2009.
Smoking kills more than 5 million people a year worldwide, accounting for 1 out of every 10 adult deaths.
Smoking in Childhood and Adolescence
Fewer teens are smoking today than in the late 1990s, but the decrease in teen smoking rates has been slower in recent years. Today 46% of high school students have ever smoked, down from 70% in 1991. The number of frequent smokers (defined as 20 or more cigarettes a month) dropped from about 13% in 1991 to 7% in 2009.
The younger children start smoking, the more likely they will smoke as adults. Smoking is often rapidly addictive. According to the American Cancer Society, the earlier you start smoking, the more likely you are to develop long-term nicotine addiction.
In the past, advertising played a major role in encouraging some teens to smoke. New regulations have made it much more difficult for advertisers to promote smoking to young people. However, scenes that show people smoking, often in a positive way, are still common in movies and television shows. This may be a major influence on the attitude toward smoking in children and adolescents.
To prevent children from smoking, parents should not smoke, and they should tell their child that they disapprove of smoking. Studies have shown that schoolchildren who believed that both their parents strongly disapproved of smoking were less than half as likely to smoke as those kids whose parents did not show as much disapproval toward smoking.
Children whose parents closely monitor their television and music-listening habits are less likely to drink, use drugs, and smoke cigarettes.
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Review Date: 09/08/2010
Reviewed By: Reviewed by: Harvey Simon, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor
of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts
General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical
Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)
