Teenage Smoking
Teenage Smoking
Cigarette smoking is a habit that kills approximately million of people per year. It is surprisingly being picked up by countless amounts of children every day. Smoking becomes a growing trend in the youth community. The number of young smokers has been increasing in most American middle schools and high schools. Both girls and boys are smoking because they think it is cool. Many of them will take this their trend and carry it for their adulthood. The four reasons that cause many teenagers to start smoking are peer-pressure, image projection, rebellion, and adult aspirations. Approximately 3,000 teenagers pick up the smoking habit each day in America. That is roughly one million new teenage smokers per year. The anti-smoking message has never been louder or more prominent. Yet the numbers suggest that the anti-smoking message is having a reverse effect. Between 1993 and 1997, the number of college students who smoke jumped from twenty-two percent to twenty-nine percent. Between 1991 and 1997, the number of high school students who smoke jumped thirty-two percent. In 1996, smoking rates are twenty-one percent among eighth-graders (13-14 years old), thirty percent among 10th-graders (15-16 years old), and thirty-four percent among 12th-graders (17-18 years old). Since 1988, the total number of teen smokers in the United States has risen an amazing seventy-three percent. These rates are impressively high, especially when compared to the fact that about twenty-five percent of all adults, who carried the trend past teenage years, are classified as smokers according to the National Health Interview Survey. According to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, this trend of smoking has all the elements consistent with a tipping point phenomenon. Gladwell's three criteria for a tipping point phenomenon are all meet with smoking.
Cigarette smoking peaked in 1996 among eighth, and tenth graders nationwide, and in 1997 among 12th-graders. Since
Cigarette smoking is a habit that kills approximately million of people per year. It is surprisingly being picked up by countless amounts of children every day. Smoking becomes a growing trend in the youth community. The number of young smokers has been increasing in most American middle schools and high schools. Both girls and boys are smoking because they think it is cool. Many of them will take this their trend and carry it for their adulthood. The four reasons that cause many teenagers to start smoking are peer-pressure, image projection, rebellion, and adult aspirations. Approximately 3,000 teenagers pick up the smoking habit each day in America. That is roughly one million new teenage smokers per year. The anti-smoking message has never been louder or more prominent. Yet the numbers suggest that the anti-smoking message is having a reverse effect. Between 1993 and 1997, the number of college students who smoke jumped from twenty-two percent to twenty-nine percent. Between 1991 and 1997, the number of high school students who smoke jumped thirty-two percent. In 1996, smoking rates are twenty-one percent among eighth-graders (13-14 years old), thirty percent among 10th-graders (15-16 years old), and thirty-four percent among 12th-graders (17-18 years old). Since 1988, the total number of teen smokers in the United States has risen an amazing seventy-three percent. These rates are impressively high, especially when compared to the fact that about twenty-five percent of all adults, who carried the trend past teenage years, are classified as smokers according to the National Health Interview Survey. According to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, this trend of smoking has all the elements consistent with a tipping point phenomenon. Gladwell's three criteria for a tipping point phenomenon are all meet with smoking.
Cigarette smoking peaked in 1996 among eighth, and tenth graders nationwide, and in 1997 among 12th-graders. Since
Cited: "Dramatic Rise in Teenage Smoking." David R. Francis. http://www.nber.org/digest/oct00/w7780.html [Accessed 17 April 2004] Available: www.nber.org Gladwell, Malcom. The Tipping Point. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Marcotty, Josephine. "Teen smoking risk rises after anti-tobacco ads scrapped" http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4725089.html "Study Says Campaigns Impact Teen Smoking Rates", Jointogether.com [Accessed 14 April 2004] Available: www.jointogether.com Swanbrow, Diane. "Teen smoking declines sharply in 2002, more than offsetting large increases in the early 1990s." http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0102/Dec16_02/smoking.shtml. "Teenage Smoking Soars above Adults", http://ash.org/teenage.html [Accessed 17 April 2004] Available: www.ash.org.com