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Puffing Your Way to Early Death

DUBAI - Smoking is equally harmful to the health of youngsters and adults, say health experts.

But for youngsters smoking tobacco, it may mean health complications and early death, say experts, while commenting on the increasing trend of tobacco use among youngsters in the UAE.

According to the Global School Health Survey (GSHS) conducted in 2005 by the Ministry of Health among 15,790 students from 200 schools from four regions in the country, at least 9.3 per cent of students were found to have smoked cigarettes and 10.7 per cent were found to have used another form of tobacco on one or more days. Boys were found to be significantly more likely than girl students to smoke or use tobacco in any form.

The survey included 67 per cent of the students in the age group of 13-15 years (Grades 7-10), and 89 per cent of those surveyed completed the questionnaire.

“Smoking kills”, says Dr Suresh Menon, Specialist Physician at Jebel Ali Hospital. “Smoking tobacco introduces chemicals to your lungs and blood stream and also causes fatty deposits to build up in your blood vessels,” he says.

“The linings of your blood vessels are changed by the chemicals in cigarettes making it easier to clog blood flow. Blood vessel linings become sticky, collecting unusual amounts of fatty deposits that can completely block off blood flow to parts of your heart and/or brain. This is just one of the many side effects related with tobacco,” he says.

The World Health Organisation estimates tobacco to be the second biggest killer in the world today, with approximately half the people who smoke regularly today —about 650 million people— likely to be eventually killed by tobacco-related causes.

Equally alarming is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked die each year from diseases caused by passive smoking.

Passive smoking

Youngsters may not only be in danger when they smoke directly.

“The smoking ban has forced people to smoke indoors, thereby, exposing non-smokers, especially children, to a greater risk of passive smoking,” he says. Passive smoking is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and non-smoking adults as well.

“In 1986, passive smoke was declared a health hazard in the US. Still, the past 20 years have seen pitched battles over banning smoking indoors, despite the fact that the accumulated scientific evidence clearly documents increased risk of lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, and other deadly ills,” he explains.

“Tobacco companies have argued that passive smoking isn’t all that bad and that the ban infringes on peoples’ freedom of choice. It can be now said unequivocally that science supports a total ban on smoking indoors.”

Dr Menon says that shopping malls and other ‘closed’ public areas are not the only risky places. “Children spend much of their early life in the presence of their parents, and if their parents smoke, these children can be exposed to long periods of environmental smoke,” he informs.

“According to international environmental protection agencies, about 100 million children below the age of six are under the risk of passive smoking indoors.”

Says doctor Fayaz Leon from a Dubai-based medical centre: “Passive smoking has officially been classified as carcinogenic — cancer causing— in humans. It has also been linked to severe acute and chronic heart disease, bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma in adults, and lower respiratory infections, asthma, and middle ear infections in children.”

guidelines for parents

• Bathroom
• Not make sufficient eye contact
• Keep their room closed all the time
• Hide things from parents, refuse to talk and avoid conversation
• Using too much air freshener, perfume
• Constantly chewing gum
• Possibly steal money to buy cigarettes
• Have older friends and refuse to bring them home

B) What can parents do 
to stop them?

• Talk to your child about the problem, be your child’s friend
• If the child is addicted to smoking; tackle the problem passively by speaking to him or her, adult to adult
• Make your children meet friends who are cool in his vocabulary, but do not smoke
• Make your children see motivational movies, read books and involve them in other activities.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com