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Teenage smoking:
What effect does it really have?
Written by: Kat
Teen star Lindsay
Lohan is the newest
teens celeb to
ignore
the smoking statistics
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You've heard the statistics, you've seen all the anti smoking commercials, it's drilled into your mind each and every day that without a doubt: smoking kills. But yet everywhere you look another high profile celeb has picked up the habit! Britney smoked until her recent pregnancy, teen queen Lindsay Lohan is rarely seen without a cigarette and new rumours state that recovering anorexic Mary-Kate Olsen has adopted the outdate fad. Statistics state that more in one in three teenagers smoke. So outside the statistics we all know for smoking in general what specific effects does smoking have on us teens and twenty somethings?
Among young people, the short-term health consequences of smoking include respiratory and nonrespiratory effects, addiction to nicotine, and the associated risk of other drug use. Long-term health consequences of youth smoking are reinforced by the fact that most young people who smoke regularly continue to smoke throughout adulthood.
Cigarette smokers have a lower level of lung function than those persons who have never smoked.
Smoking reduces the rate of lung growth.
In adults, cigarette smoking causes heart disease and stroke. Studies have shown that early signs of these diseases can be found in adolescents who smoke.
Girls who smoke as teens are more
likely to suffer from breast cancer
later in life then those who don't.
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Smoking as teenagers significantly increases women's risk of going on to develop breast cancer.
Smoking hurts young people's physical fitness in terms of both performance and endurance—even among young people trained in competitive running.
On average, someone who smokes a pack or more of cigarettes each day lives 7 years less than someone who never smoked.
The resting heart rates of young adult smokers are two to three beats per minute faster than nonsmokers.
Smoking at an early age increases the risk of lung cancer. For most smoking-related cancers, the risk rises as the individual continues to smoke.
Teenage smokers suffer from shortness of breath almost three times as often as teens who don't smoke, and produce phlegm more than twice as often as teens who don't smoke.
Teenage smokers are more likely to have seen a doctor or other health professionals for an emotional or psychological complaint.
Teens who smoke are three times more likely than nonsmokers to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana, and 22 times more likely to use cocaine. Smoking is associated with a host of other risky behaviors, such as fighting and engaging in unprotected sex.
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