Cigarette Smoking Among Teens

THE chances are high that Filipino children aged 11 to 16 have already have tried smoking cigarettes. The probability that a child has already lighted his first stick--or worse, is a full-blown smoker--is even greater when members of his family are smoking, too. And then, of course, there is peer pressure.
A Youth Tobacco Survey by the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) Philippine Chapter among grade school and high school students in Metro Manila has reinforced what many people have been thinking all along about youth and smoking.
The survey of 2,932 respondents with an average age of 13, from twelve elementary and secondary private and public schools in Metro Manila was conducted by the ACCP after a series of "tobacco or health workshops" in these schools from 1998 to 2001.
The ACCP survey results approximate the findings of an earlier study made by the health department last June on the same issue in selected secondary schools nationwide, said Dr. Antonio Lopez, an undersecretary at the Department of Health (DOH), one of the panel reactors.
The ACCP survey was presented last August 4 at a forum in Mandaluyong City. Although the audience, composed mostly of parents and medical doctors, appeared troubled by the information, they did not seem surprised by the results. They had heard it all before.
The Youth Tobacco Survey showed that cigarette smoking is "high, and use of other tobacco products is moderately high."
According to the study, majority of the students surveyed started smoking in their early teens. A third of the respondents (29.6%) aged 10 to 20 admitted that they have tried smoking. Of these respondents, 18.8% are current smokers, with 4.7% smoking at least one stick of cigarette per day.
Of the current smokers, 62.7 per cent are in private schools.

post by, Lai