The largest ever survey on the health habits of children in Ireland has shown that while fewer are taking up smoking, many adolescent girls are still finding it difficult to resist. Hélène Hofman asks the experts why
There are now fewer smokers under the age of 18 in Ireland than there were four years ago. However, girls in their late teens are still significantly more likely to take up the habit than boys in the same age group, a new survey funded by the Department of Health and Children has found.
Anti-smoking campaigners have welcomed the findings of the third and latest Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey 2006, released last Wednesday, which says that 15 per cent of children aged nine to 17 years are currently smokers. The figure is significantly lower than that reported in the previous two HBSC surveys in 1998 and 2002 when 21 per cent and 19 per cent respectively said they were current smokers.
Concern has been raised over the fact that of the girls surveyed in the 15-17 year-old age group 28 per cent said they were smokers, compared to just 23 per cent of boys of the same age.
"It's appalling that teenage girls are still ahead of the general population where only 24 per cent smoke, compared to 28 per cent of 15 to 17 year-old girls," says Prof Luke Clancy, chairman of Action on Smoking and Health (Ash). "That more children are smoking than the general population is unacceptable."
Ash has been conducting annual surveys among young people to gauge their attitude to smoking since 1995. According to Prof Clancy, while the number of boys in their late teens taking up smoking has fallen over the years, the number of girls following suit is much smaller.
"Twelve years ago boys were just ahead of girls, but then the girls started to catch up. What's happened now is not so much that they have surpassed boys but that the fall-off in boys smoking is greater. Why exactly girls caught up nobody knows," he says.
"There is a risk-taking aspect. Girls want to take risks but are reluctant to do harder things and see smoking as something they can square with while forgetting that they may become addicted and the effect it will have on their health, hair and skin," he adds.
One of the biggest influences according to Clancy is the glamorisation of smoking by celebrities and in magazines. "They responded to the image of the streamlined model on cat walks. Girls are more influenced by magazines than boys and when you think of the swooning around pop icons that usually applies to girls. The fact they think it is slimming may also be a factor but more as a reason for not giving up than a factor in initiating," he says.
Despite being concerned that so many teenage girls are smoking, Clancy welcomed the fact that the overall number of children smoking has reduced by a quarter since 1998. The number of smokers in the younger age groups has been particularly reduced with only 1 per cent of 10 to 11-year-olds and 11 per cent of 12 to 14-year-olds surveyed saying they were current smokers .
"The figures are not great. They're better, but we still have a long way to go," he said. "Young people need to realise that it's not normal practice and in fact they're being conned by the tobacco industry. Smoking reduces their life span by about 15 years, causes disease and disability, makes them smell rotten, dulls their hair, damages their skin but they're being told it will make them sexy by the multinationals."
In a bid to raise awareness of the dangers associated with smoking the Irish Cancer Society has contributed a module on smoking to the Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) programme for Junior Certificate students.
"Education is important in terms of preventing young people from smoking and that is why we try to have it dealt with in schools," says Siobhan Smyth, health promotion officer for tobacco control with the Irish Cancer Society. "However, there will always be a certain number of children who will experiment. Unfortunately most of them don't think of the risks. They underestimate the power of nicotine and don't realise how easily they can become addicted. They think, 'I'll try it once and that will be it' but it doesn't work like that," says Smyth.
"At that age they often think they are invincible. Even if they have heard of the dangers of coronary heart disease, lung disease and stroke they may see them solely as diseases for older people which won't affect them. Recently our campaigns have looked at the superficial effects of smoking - what it does to your skin and hair - because that seems to hit home more."
The Office of Tobacco Control (OTC) says it believes the inclusion of the smoking module into the SPHE programme may have helped discourage some young people from smoking. It also suggests that a number of other factors contributed, including the introduction of restrictions on tobacco advertising, better health promotion campaigns and price hikes.
It believes the recent ban on 10-packs of cigarettes may also impact in future.
"There is no one thing that is responsible for the reduction but rather a combination of a series of measures that work when put together," explains Éamonn Rossi, chief executive of the OTC.
"The education programme gives children better self-esteem and the ability to resist peer pressure. Price hikes are also a major thing. Children are more price sensitive than the rest of the population and last year the Government increased the tax on cigarettes by 50 cent per packet and we are calling for further price hikes.
Also, the advertising of cigarettes has been restricted which helps and we would be looking for further action on that," he says.
The OTC is currently working with the Government to ban point-of-sale advertising of tobacco products which they say has an unfair influence on young consumers.
"Cigarettes are a drug and any smoker will know it's very difficult to give up once people are captured by that drug," Rossi adds.
"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has termed smoking a paediatric disease.
"Our own research shows that up to 80 per cent of current smokers in Ireland started smoking before they were 18 years old and 53 per cent started before they were 16. If we can delay or stop children from taking up smoking then that will have a positive impact on the general adult population in years to come."