Mumbai:
College girls from downtown Mumbai smoke more than those living in the suburbs, according to a study conducted by the Cancer Patient Aid and Association (CPAA). The non-governmental organisation working for the welfare of cancer patients found that 43% of girls smoke in the city compared to 18% in the suburbs.
Addiction to the deadly stick starts early. The earliest age at which smoking starts among girls is 11 years. What is baffling, however, is that 12% girls said they smoke to lose weight.
Another important finding was that, contrary to popular perception, only 14% think smoking is a stress-buster.
"Downtown girls smoke as they think it is a style statement," said Anita Peter, director, CPAA. "They are also open to talking about their smoking habit, as compared to girls studying in colleges in the suburbs. During our study, we found that while 26% girls smoke for fun, 23% smoke because their friends smoke too. What was surprising was that 12% think it will help them lose weight. This is the level of ignorance among our youth."
The CPAA study reveals that girls smoke a little less than boys, but prefer smoking indoors unlike their male counterparts.
"We spoke to over 15,000 students from colleges across the city. NSS [National Service Scheme] volunteers in colleges helped us with the study. We interviewed students in the age group of 18-22 years and found that there is hardly any difference in the percentages of male and female smokers. We found that there are 59.02% male smokers and 41.06% female smokers," said Peter.
The study showed that the earliest age at which girls or boys first smoked was 11 years. "We found that 32% of the students surveyed smoke at least 10 cigarettes a day, 8% smoke at least 15 cigarettes a day, and 60% smoke more than five cigarettes a day," added Peter.
"What is surprising is that these youngsters are aware of the long-term impact that smoking will have on their health. However, they carry on with the habit on the pretext that the government should ban cigarettes if it is so concerned about the health of the country's youth. Forty-eight per cent said they had never tried to quit smoking," said Peter.
Talking about steps taken by the government towards trying to stop people from smoking, Peter said, "The government washes its hands of the matter by printing a small picture and a warning. In other countries, the governments ensure that gory pictures of people affected by smoking are printed on cigarette packs and a helpline number is also given to help smokers quit kick the habit."
He said that the NGO had recommended the government to do the same but it got no response.
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