Marketing Tobacco: Why Teenage Girls Are Targeted
With all of the negative publicity about smoking, why do so many women and
teenage girls continue to smoke? Teenagers vastly underestimate the addiction
potential of nicotine. A woman who begins smoking when she is very young will
have a very difficult time quitting as she ages and becomes more concerned with
the health consequences. Studies show that most teenage girls who smoke want
to quit, and 77% of them have tried.
It is well documented that there are social, political and economic forces that
influence tobacco use, particularly among youth. Adolescents who smoke are
generally less physically fit and have more respiratory illnesses than their
nonsmoking peers. In addition, smoking by adolescents hastens the onset of lung
function decline during late adolescence and early adulthood. Smoking by
adolescents is also related to impaired lung growth, chronic coughing and
wheezing.
A major factor influencing susceptibility to and initiation of smoking among girls is
the tobacco industry's long-standing (75 years or more) targeted marketing to
women and girls. Tobacco marketers know that if they can hook children as
users, these children are more likely to become lifelong customers.
The tobacco industry spends more than $11 billion dollars annually in the U.S. to
advertise and promote its products, including print media advertising (cigarette
ads are banned from television and radio); distribution of free samples, cents-off
coupons, T-shirts and other giveaways; movie product placements; cultural
programs; donations to a wide range of national and local organizations; and
political contributions to elected officials. Also, a study in late 2001 found that the
more teenagers see actors smoking in films, the more likely they are to try
cigarettes. This targeted marketing to teenage girls and women is dominated by
themes portraying the desirability and independence of women who smoke.
These themes are conveyed through ads featuring thin, attractive, athletic
models, images very much at variance with the serious health consequences
experienced by so many women who smoke.
Women's Greater Vulnerability to Tobacco
Some research has revealed that women might be more susceptible to the
addictive properties of nicotine and have a slower metabolic clearance of nicotine
from their bodies than men. Also, women seem to be more susceptible to the
effects of tobacco carcinogens than men.
A recent survey of both men and women showed that women cite more emotional
causes such as relief of stress, anxiety, anger or depression when asked the
reasons why they smoke. One-third of both men and women in the survey also
said that the longest they have been able to stop was for one week or less. Only
one-fifth of both genders were successful for a year or more.
Smoking and Addiction
Nicotine is what keeps smokers addicted to tobacco, and it doesn't take long to
get hooked. Nicotine is one of the most powerful addictive drugs, yet it is also
easily available and more socially accepted than other highly addictive
substances. On a milligram by milligram comparison, nicotine is 10 times more
addictive than heroin.
Nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco, however most of the negative health
consequences of smoking are caused by the other 4,000 chemicals inhaled when
tobacco products are burned. Carbon monoxide is also produced. It becomes
attached to the red blood cells and decreases the oxygen available to the body
tissues.
Nicotine's effect on the central nervous system is what makes smoking
pleasurable. Nicotine has a calming effect, and can relieve anxiety, boredom and
irritability. Nicotine also has a stimulant effect, increasing alertness, improving
concentration.
Within seven to 10 seconds of inhaling, your brain feels the effect of nicotine.
Repeated inhalations maintain a steady blood level of nicotine. When you stop
puffing the blood level goes down. You light up again to deliver more nicotine to
the brain. Pretty soon your brain and body consider it normal for you to have a
certain blood level of nicotine. When that level goes down you feel
uncomfortable, irritable, unfocused. That's withdrawal. Now you are addicted. You
smoke to keep from going into withdrawal, and you may find yourself smoking
more and more.
(From NWHRC - The National Women's Health Resource Center)
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Breasts and Coffee
Drinking more than three cups of coffee a day can apparently reduce the size
of women's breasts. But it also reduces the risk of cancer, researchers say.
Swedish oncologist Dr Helena Jernstroem said a gene -
which half of women have - could react and cause them
to a drop a bra size. But she added: "Coffee-drinking
women do not have to worry their breasts will shrink to
nothing overnight. They will get smaller but the breasts
aren't just going to disappear".
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