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Show Thursday, November 6, 2008 The Gunnison Valley Gazette Page 7 Do Your Best The vast majority of parents do not want their kids to smoke, for obvious reasons. Smoking causes a wide range of serious health problems – including lung cancer, heart disease, and strokes – and frequently results in premature disability and death. To make matters worse, kids can start becoming seriously addicted to smoking very quickly, just weeks or even days after first “experimenting” with cigarettes. What’s more, smoking can harm kids well before they reach adulthood by causing a number of immediate, sometimes irreversible, health risks and problems. Right now, one in five high school students smoke, while experimentation can start as early as fourth grade. Each day, more than 3,500 kids try their first cigarette; and each day another 1,000 kids, under 18 years of age, become new, regular daily smokers. That is more than 400,000 new underage daily smokers each year – and roughly one-third of them will eventually die prematurely from smoking-caused disease. Fortunately, parents can take a number of effective actions to protect their kids from starting to smoke or becoming another one of the tobacco industry’s addicted customers and victims. Being good parents and role models is important, but it takes much more to prevent kids from smoking. Parents must also work against pro-smoking influences outside the home, including efforts to ensure that schools are doing their best to prevent and reduce youth smoking and to reduce cigarette-company marketing that reaches and influences kids. The U.S. cigarette companies spend almost $36 million per day marketing makes children less likely to smoke, even if their parents smoke. By not allowing anyone to smoke in their homes, parents not only make smoking less convenient for their kids but also make a powerful statement that they believe smoking is undesirable. • Tell you kids that you don’t want them to smoke and will be disappointed if they do. Parental attitudes, opinions, and feelings about their kids’ smoking status greatly influences whether or not kids will smoke, even when the parents smoke. • Make sure your kids have the facts they need. By making sure that their kids know how harmful smoking is, parents can help their kids to develop a firm, negative perception or attitude about smoking practices and their consequences, and kids with such negative perceptions or attitudes are less likely to smoke. • Emphasize the immediate health effects. Most teenagers wrongly believe that smoking will have no direct effect on their health until they reach middle age. But smoking causes many immediate or near-term effects on health, including persistent coughs, respiratory problems, a greater susceptibility to illness, and decreased physical performance. • Emphasize the effects of smoking on physical appearance. Cigarette ads create the image that smoking is sexy and attractive; and kids identify improving self-image as a reason for smoking. But smoking actually causes yellow teeth, bad breath, smelly clothes, and more severe and early facial wrinkles. • Destroy the myth that their products, and they rely on youth smokers to replace their adult customers who quit or die. As one cigarette company executive put it, “the base of our business is the high school student.” What parents say, how they act, and the values they communicate through their words and deeds has an enormous influence on children; and that applies to tobacco use, as well. Studies have found that parental actions, attitudes, and opinions about smoking have a great deal of influence on whether or not kids smoke. A recent study found that parental antismoking actions such as having restrictions about smoking in the home or sitting in non-smoking sections of restaurants are associated with reductions in children’s smoking. Specifically, parents can take the following actions to help ensure that their children remain (or become) tobacco-free: • If you don’t smoke, don’t start! If you do smoke, quit! Research shows that children who have a parent who smokes are more likely to smoke and to be heavier smokers at young ages. When parents quit smoking, their children become less likely to start smoking and more likely to quit if they already smoke. • If you smoke, share your struggles to quit with your children. Kids greatly underestimate how difficult it is to quit smoking. Showing how hard it is to quit (and making sure quitting doesn’t look easy) can help eliminate this misperception. Continuing to try to quit, despite the difficulties, also sends a strong anti-smoking message. • Maintain a smoke-free home. A smoke-free home everybody smokes. Many kids overestimate the amount of smoking among their peers and such overestimations is among the strongest predictors of smoking initiation. For example, teens believe that 67 percent of adults smoke and that 54 percent of teens are current smokers, but less than 25 percent of adults and 17 percent of all teens actually do. Parents can also help to keep their kids from smoking by following basic good-parenting practices. For example, kids who do well in school and participate in structured, extra-curricular activities are less likely to be susceptible to smoking – and parents can encourage and support both. As an added bonus, by setting and consistently enforcing realistic rules, talking to their children, paying attention to the kinds of friends their kids are associating with, and generally staying interested and involved in their children’s lives, parents can not only reduce the risk that their children will smoke but also reduce the chances that they will become involved in other risky behaviors, such as alcohol and other drug use, early sexual involvement, and the like. While parents can play an important role in youth smoking prevention, kids are subject to other powerful influences outside their homes that can play a critical role in whether they smoke or not. Most notably, the cigarette companies spend more than $13.1 billion per year to market and promote their products, and most of these marketing efforts reach kids. In fact, research studies have found that kids are three See SMOKING, Page 9 Do Your Best is sponsored by: Peterson Refrigeration and Mechanical 550 South Main, Gunnison • 528-3365 Central Utah Equipment Sales 2001 Lincoln Town Car 63,000 Miles Only $6,500 Central Utah Equipment Sales Buy, Sell and Trade 435-528-5919 420 South Main • Centerfield The Management of Gunnison Market look forward to serving you! Jeremy: Meat Dept. Lecia: Bakery Jeremy Vincent: Store Manager Marshall: Produce McKenzie: Grocery Manager Prices effective through November 11, 2008 Western Family 48 oz. Asst. Western Family 12 oz. Cooking Oil Evaporated Milk .69c 32 oz. Powdered, Brown or Dark Brown C&H Sugar 2for$3 Natural Sun-Dried Raisins $2.99 Pork Chops Western Family 10 lbs. Granulated Sugar Product of USA Red Seedless .99c lb. $1.99lb. 28-32 oz. Southern Style or O’brien Western Family $1.29lb. .69c $4.79 Potatoes Fresh from the Bakery! 10 ct. Peanut Butter Bars - $3.49 ea. 4 ct. Asst. Delicious Twirls - $3.99 Rosemary Olive Loaf LaBrea Bread - $3.99 8” White or Chocolate Single Layer Cakes $5.99 ea. 3for$5 Western Family 32 oz. Light Corn Syrup 2for$3 Beef London Broil Grapes Asparagus Super Saver Pack Asst. Bone-In Cake Mixes $2.88 Western Family 32 oz. Bag Product of USA Fresh Tender Western Family 18.25-18.5 oz. Asst. Steaks 16.3 oz. Biscuits Asst. Pillsbury Grands! 3for$5 $1.99 lb. Western Family 96 oz. Chilled Asst. Orange Juice 2for$6 Delicatessen BirchBerry Roast Beef - $6.99 lb. Cafe Jose Mexi Meals - $4.99 ea. 8 piece Fried or Baked BirchBerry Chicken $6.99 Birch Berry Provolone Cheese - $5.99 lb. |
