Health Matters

Puff, Puff, Pass or Just Pass?

By Jordan Dent             

There are habits that you tend to pick up as you go through life.  Some habits can be positive.  For example keeping a room clean, organizing workloads or managing your time well.  Other habits can be negative such as picking your teeth, forgetting assignments or forgetting your wallet.  But there are some that can be worse than others like smoking cigarettes.            

Smoking cigarettes is an unhealthy habit to begin.  It has negative side effects on your body and life.  Cigarette smoking can cause major health issues such as heart disease or the most common illness, cancer.   The most common form of cancer that is caused by smoking is lung cancer.  However, there are multiple forms of cancer such as cancer of the esophagus, leukemia, pancreatic cancer and stomach cancer.              

Smoking can also lead to death.  Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that one in every five people die from smoking cigarettes.  Statistics also show that 90% of men die from lung cancer and 80% of women die from lung cancer.  This simply means that men are at a greater risk of dying from lung cancer, but women aren’t too far behind.            

All habits begin somewhere, so where could smoking cigarettes possibly come from?  It can come from being stressed out, trying to fit in with new friends who smoke or something you have seen done at home.  Ultimately, you should try and find something else to do other than smoking a cigarette, but what could be better?            

Try exercising.   Exercising is a great stress reliever and helps you stay healthy.  Read a book.  It sounds boring, but reading a book for school or pure entertainment can help you be more productive or relax yourself.  Hang out with friends who respect the fact that you choose not to smoke of friends who do not smoke.  Peer pressure is hard to overcome, but friends who respect your choices of not smoking make it easier to handle.  If a family member decides to light a cigarette in your presence, remove yourself from that environment until they are done or ask them in a respectful manner not to smoke around you.  Who knows, you could influence them to quit.            

So the next time that you’re feeling stressed out, being peer-pressured into smoking or around a family member who is smoking, are you going to puff, puff, pass or just pass?