Protecting Your Children From Tobacco Use
Take action today to help protect your children from the harms caused by tobacco use. Free resources are available to help you and your children live fuller, healthier lives.
Why Do Youth Use Tobacco?
The reasons young people begin to use tobacco include:
- Tobacco industry marketing. Tobacco companies spend more than a million dollars an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to market their deadly products. Even though the tobacco industry is no longer allowed to target children with advertising and promotions, youth are regularly exposed to images suggesting that tobacco use is cool, adult, and appealing. This marketing, including coupons and other promotions that make cigarettes more affordable, directly contributes to the number of young people who smoke.
- Social influences. Adolescents are more likely to try tobacco if they see tobacco use as a normal behavior because their friends or family members use tobacco.
- Physical influences. Nicotine is just as addictive as heroin and cocaine. Because teens are sensitive to nicotine, they can feel dependent on tobacco sooner than adults.
- Environmental influences. If teens and young adults are exposed to images that portray smokers as cool, attractive, rebellious, fun loving, risk taking, or other characteristics they admire, they may want to smoke, too. Such images are often found in advertising displays at convenience stores and other outlets that sell tobacco, as well as in movies and on TV….. READ MORE http://www.cdc.gov/features/BackToSchool/
