14 May Alessia Sasso Infographic
Teenage smoking habits in the UK
In the infographic, it is shown a few different stages of smoking.
The first part it is the effect of smoking, it is a very important part to understand because some young adults are not aware of the amount of bad effects smoke does on the body, long term or short term. These sources come from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.
Effects of smoking such as lungs problems, high risk of cancer, eye disease, coughing and teeth problems, are a few of the many more risks and effect smoke can cause, like strokes, seizures, fast breathing, etc…
In the infographic, it is shown most effects that teenagers may experience even just by smoking a few cigarettes per day. For example, smoking long term can cause lung cancer. But many people don’t realize that smoking even one cigarette for a short period of time has serious, swift effects on your heart every time you take a drag.
In the second part of the infographic, it is shown the data on smoking rates between the age of 16 to 24. The source comes from “Gbopnsmoking.xls”. It is shown that there 44% both female and male between the age of 16 to 24 smokers in the UK.
On a daily young adults between the age of 16 to 24 years old smoke 11 cigarettes, smoking so many cigarettes from a young age, not only can give many health problems, but what many people experience is wanting to quit once it gets to a certain age like 30 to 50 years old and it is almost impossible to do so as it gets so addicting from a young age.
Male teenagers tend to start smoking earlier than females, and male smokers between the age of 16 to 24 years are only 8% more than smokers females. It is a small percentage and from this data we can tell there isn’t much difference in gender, smoking it is a common problem both for females and males.
And lastly, the reason why teenagers and young adults start smoking at such an early age. Source by “A comprehensive online research”. Many cases of young smokers can indirectly be affected by smoking parents, when kids and teens see adults, especially their parents, smoke, they will be more likely to smoke because they will perceive smoking as normal behavior and something that is grown-up and mature.
For some teenagers smoking it is a “cool” thing to do and in some cases, some teenagers would start smoking because of trying to impress a peer without understanding the consequences that action may have in the near future.
Peer pressure is highly happening until these days. Teenagers are very likely to peer press each other into smoking and into doing things without thinking, As shown in the data set male do tent to smoke earlier than females and they are in quantity 8% more than females, but from my research it is shown that females do tend to get affected by peer pressure more than males.
