Young Women and Smoking Essay:
The number of young women who smoke has significantly increased over time. As Alkhamees states, more than a third of female students in high schools smoke at least a cigarette in month”. Alkhamees, in his article: “Young Women and Smoking” explores the reason as to why young women smoke and also provide the possible remedies to help curb the situation. I strongly agree with the writer that the number of young women who smoke has increased. The purpose of this paper is to confirm the causes of smoking among young women and the possible solutions to help managing alarming situation.
As Alkhamees suggests, celebrities have greatly had a negative influence on personalities and health of their fans. Superstars including Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse have publicly taken insane amount of drugs without caring the impact it had on the society. Movie stars light up cigarettes in almost each movie. According to a survey conducted by Teen Link magazine, nearly 88% to 92% of the top thirty movie hits on the box office ratings have been involved in tobacco use. What these celebrities fail to understand is that these movies are watched by many people around the world and therefore, the media greatly participates in defining what people in a given region do or consider right or wrong. Some teenage girls lay their hands on tobacco when dealing with stress and eventually ended up being addicted to it. According to results obtained by health Canada, there is a direct relationship between smoking and stress. As observed by Alkhamees, when women celebrities are faced with stressful moments, they regularly smoke to relieve themselves of the stress. Teenagers have consequently learned from the habit and may want to try it out.
According to Alkhamees, celebrities should learn to be ethical by rethinking about the impact of their actions in the movies. Pop music icons should support drug free programs instead of propagating use of tobacco. Organisations like Nacada have significantly informed the public through the media on the dangers of smoking and other malpractices. It could even be more effective if the celebrities or models are used as anti-drug images or campaigners. However, there are more reasons as to why teenage girls or generally young women smoke, the globally held notion of smoking to lose weight has additionally led to addiction. Considering America, where all girls want to be slim, many of young girls would smoke to get slim.
According to Dr. Van De Graff, smoking among young women can be reduced through the following additional methods. Dr. van de Graff warns young girls to be very careful when choosing their boyfriends. This is because in most cases, it has been reported that males are common at introducing females to smoking. Others include working extremely hard to maintain or up hold one’s personality and seeking advice.
Conclusion
Female celebrities have contributed to the indulgence of young women in smoking. These celebrities are in a better position to reach people and therefore should use their popularity to help the community by campaigning against smoking and use of other drugs. Young women too need to be careful on their part by keeping themselves busy from any activities which could lead them to smoke or use other drugs. However, the current trend in smoking among women makes it difficult to control or manage the increasing number of young women smokers.