Social Issues

Social Environment  

The problem of smoking, and entailing disease and death has been around for too long. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, and many parts of the world. Although the health risks that are involved with smoking are known, the problem still persists. A large part of the reason lies in the social environment in which we are surrounded by.

Most smokers admit that they started their habit at an early age, in high school, and these the majority of these smokers also admit that they would probably have never started if they didnt smoke in high school. As well as educating people about the health hazards of smoking, it is also important to deal with the social aspects and pressure that push people into smoking. The two main components of social pressure come from the media and peers. The adolescent stage of life is marked by rebellion and independence. In hopes of defining their identity, many adolescents look to idols and peers for appealing characteristics. Unfortunately, the media knows this, and subtly portray smoking as glamorous or tough. Although cigarette advertising has been banned from television and radio, there are still too many ads in magazines that have a large adolescent readership. Tobacco companies knowingly pursue teenage magazines, but allege that they do not direct advertisements to the underage population. In fact, many children recognize Joe Camel when they are starting to recognize characters like Mickey Mouse.

Peer pressure also plays a large role in adolescents beginning to smoke. Many programs in schools around the world are being implemented that demonstrate to students how todecline offers to smoke. These programs also teach students how to cope with the peer pressure, and give them skills to handle the influences to use tobacco. Programs such as these are effective in turning away millions of would-be smokers.

The most effective way to fight smoking amongst adolescents is to prevent the access to tobacco products, further educate the public of the biological effects of tobacco, and teach them skills to help them refuse the use of tobacco.