News
Branding on cigarette packs under fire from MPs
Teenagers do listen to their parents when it comes to smoking
Kids who watch R-rated movies are more likely to smoke - EurekAlert!
Truth Campaign Prevented Almost Half A Million Teens From Smoking
Young Smokers Think Smoking Is 'Cool' But Fear The Future Impact On Their Appearance
Branding on cigarette packs under fire from MPs
Plans to force cigarette manufacturers to introduce plain packaging — assumed to have been dropped in Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report last year — have been quietly revived.
A group of cross-party backbench peers have made amendments to the Health
Bill, which is making its way through Parliament, with a view to restoring
the proposal. This would allow the Health Secretary to ban or restrict
the sale or supply of tobacco products if they are sold in packaging that
does not comply with regulations. If passed, the Health Secretary would
also be allowed to dictate the colour of cigarette packs, their shape,
the trademarks displayed on them and any labelling.
The existing Bill also includes proposals to ban cigarette displays in
shops.
Tobacco companies for whom branded packs are the only remaining form of advertising in the UK.
Ministers accept there is no evidence that plain wrappers will have any effect on the public, but the tobacco industry suspects that they are seeking evidence to the contrary.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, the health campaigning charity, said recently: “The tobacco display ban will help to reduce youth smoking, but the ultimate challenge is to get rid of tobacco advertising completely by requiring tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging and prohibiting the sale of tobacco from vending machines.”
Source: The Times, 09 March 2009
http://tinyurl.com/b7acph
Teenagers do listen to their parents when it comes to smoking
Parents can help their teenagers to never start smoking. A Swedish study published in the open access journal BMC Public Health has found that adolescents respond positively to their parents' attitudes towards smoking.
The surveys explored the attitudes, beliefs and tobacco use of teenagers across Sweden. Responses were obtained from young people aged 13, 15 and 17 years old, with 1500 adolescents in each age group. A total of 13500 adolescents were surveyed.
The aim of the study was to determine adolescent attitudes towards parental intervention on tobacco use in Sweden and to see if these have changed over time.
Teenagers are more positive today towards their parents' attempts to discourage them from smoking, regardless of whether or not they smoked, than in the past. The most effective actions parents could take include dissuading their children from smoking, not smoking themselves and not allowing their children to smoke at home. Younger children were more positive about these approaches than older children.
The authors of the study concluded that the prevalence of smoking in adolescents in Sweden has fallen and an increasing number of teenagers have never smoked. "The fact that adolescents respond positively to parental attitudes to smoking is encouraging," says Nilsson. "Parents should be encouraged to intervene with respect to their children's tobacco use." The findings are contrary to suggestions that children resent interventions by their parents to discourage them from smoking.
Source: Science Daily, 03 March 2009
http://tinyurl.com/atyofj
Kids who watch R-rated movies are more likely to smoke - EurekAlert!
A new study finds that kids who are allowed to watch R-rated movies are much more likely to believe it's easy to get a cigarette than those who aren't allowed to watch such films.
"We don't know why this is so. It may have to do with a parenting style that is permissive of activities that are not age-appropriate. Or it may be an outcome of all the smoking scenes in R-rated movies," says lead author of the study Chyke Doubeni, PhD, with the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The study appears in the February 21 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"But we do know that kids who believe it is easy to get a cigarette are at risk of smoking. Our prior research has already shown that kids who perceive cigarettes as readily accessible are more likely to end up as regular smokers," Doubeni said.
The researchers found that parental permission to watch R-rated movies was one of the strongest predictors of the perception that cigarettes are available, about as strong as having friends that smoked. If allowed to watch R-rated films, nonsmokers were almost twice as likely, and smokers were almost three times as likely to say it would be easy for them to get cigarettes.
The researchers looked at data from the second Development and Assessment of Nicotine Dependence in Youth, a four-year study of 1246 sixth-grade students in Massachusetts who were interviewed 11 times from 2002 to 2006. Students were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement: "It would be easy for me to get a cigarette." They were also asked "Is anybody allowed to smoke inside your home?" and "How often do your parents let you watch movies or videos that are rated R?"
The study was funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"Parents need to be mindful about the movies their children watch for a variety of obvious reasons. This study points out one more reason for not allowing children to watch movies that are not appropriate for their age," added co-author Dr. Joseph DiFranza with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
The study also found that having a favorite tobacco advertisement was significantly associated with perceived accessibility, as was knowing the Joe Camel cartoon mascot for Camel cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, kids with parents who smoke or allow smoking in the home tended to think it would be very easy to obtain cigarettes.
"This implies that parental smoking likely contributes to youth smoking through increased perceived accessibility," says Doubeni. "Parents need to understand that your kids are more likely to get cigarettes if you smoke, particularly if you smoke in the home or allow someone else to smoke in the home."
Source: 25 March 2009
http://www.ajpm-online.net/article/S0749-3797(08)00951-3/abstract
Truth Campaign Prevented Almost Half A Million Teens From Smoking
The national youth smoking-prevention campaign known as truth®, likely
prevented 450,000 adolescents from initiating smoking, according to a new
study by researchers at RTI International.
"Given the substantial lifetime health and economic burden of smoking,
preventing adolescents and young adults from beginning to smoke is a smart
investment in public health," said Matthew Farrelly, Ph.D., senior director
of RTI's Public Health Policy Research Program. "These results come at
a time when funding for smoking-prevention programs in the U.S. is declining."
The study, published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine,
used data from the on-going National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that
interviewed almost 9,000 adolescents annually from 1997 to 2004. The participants
ranged in age from 15 to 20 when the truth® campaign was launched in February
2000.
The results of the study suggest that from 2000 to 2004 there were 450,000
fewer 15 to 24 year olds who initiated smoking as a result of the truth®
campaign.
Source: Medical News Today – 13 February 2009
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/138866.php
Young Smokers Think Smoking Is 'Cool' But Fear
The Future Impact
On Their Appearance - Medical News Today
January 28, 2009
Young smokers say concern about the effects of smoking on their appearance is a good reason to quit smoking, but not until they see visible changes to their appearance. This is the finding of a study by Professor Sarah Grogan of the University of Staffordshire and colleagues Gary Fry, Brendan Gough and Mark Conner, published today (26th January 2009) in the British Journal of Health Psychology.
87 smokers and non-smokers aged 17-24
took part in the study, based on focus groups. The smokers discussed how
smoking impacted negatively on physical appearance (skin, teeth, hair,
and weight), and how they made sense of their smoking. The non-smokers
also discussed a potential link between appearance and smoking, together
with any appearance-related concerns that would discourage them from taking
up the habit.
Male and female smokers were concerned about the impact of smoking on their appearance, but would quit only if skin ageing, wrinkling or other negative effects on appearance became noticeable. The young people did not consider themselves at immediate risk of such effects as they were thought to occur in older smokers only. Non-smokers expressed concern about the impact on skin and teeth if they started smoking.
Professor Grogan
said: "Young adults have the highest rates of smoking
in the UK; they are also likely to be concerned with their physical appearance.
Emphasising the fact that skin damage caused by smoking may no t be visible
to the naked eye - but is still happening - might be an effective way to
motivate young people to quit."
The findings of this study will be used to inform anti-smoking campaigns
targeted at young people. "Our study suggests that campaigns that
emphasise the negative effects that smoking can have on appearance are
more likely to encourage young people to quit than those that focus on
the impact of smoking on health," Sarah concluded.
Source: Medical News Today – 28 January 2009
http://bpsoc.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpsoc/bjsp/2008/00000047/00000004/art00011
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