Posted on 09/07/2012 11:58:21 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Peer pressure continues to prompt high school students to light up, new research suggests, because popular teens tend to smoke and they induce others to take up the habit in an effort to fit in and be liked.
“Popularity is a strong predictor of smoking,” said study author Thomas Valente, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “We haven’t done enough to make it cool not to smoke.”
The finding, published online Sept. 6 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, confirms trends Valente found in previous research studying smoking in students in sixth through 12th grade across the United States and in Mexico.
The new research found that the most popular kids in seven predominantly Hispanic/Latino high schools in southern California were more likely to smoke cigarettes than were other students. It turns out that just thinking your friends are smokers—even if they aren’t—makes you more likely to smoke. And the more popular you are, the earlier you’re likely to start.
“It’s the popularity that’s a risk factor for smoking, and it’s very disturbing,” said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association and a professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University, in New York.
According to the American Lung Association, 68 percent of adult smokers started at age 18 or younger, and every day almost 3,900 children under 18 try their first cigarette. People who start smoking in adolescence are more likely to develop a severe addiction to nicotine than are those who start later.
The researchers asked 1,950 students in the ninth and 10th grades in 2006 and 2007 whether they had ever tried smoking, how often they smoked in the past month, how many students they thought smoked cigarettes and how they thought their close friends felt about smoking. They also asked the teens to identify their five best friends at school, a question designed to reveal the students’ social networks.
Popularity was measured by how often the students named someone as a friend. Those who thought their close friends smoked were more likely to be smokers, too, and those who smoked tended to form friendships with others who smoked as well.
Kids tend to be more interested in what their immediate friends are doing than in what most students are doing in their school, the study found. The researchers also discovered that students cared more about whether their particular group of friends smoked than whether they believed most people in their high school lit up.
Valente said the research shows that parents should be wary of encouraging their kids to try to fit in. “We always want our kids to be popular, but there’s a liability to that. By being popular you’re more aware of other things that are happening around you and you want to be sure to retain that popularity, which in and of itself is stressful.”
Popularity is probably a risk factor for other behaviors that can spread through schools, including binge drinking, risky sexual activities and some unhealthy eating behaviors, Valente added.
How can adults counteract the impact of popularity on kids when it comes to smoking? Valente said kids need to be told that the tobacco industry is manipulating them to smoke, “since teenagers don’t like to be manipulated.” He also said research shows it is effective to recruit popular kids to discuss why smoking is not “cool.”
Edelman said the solution may be pocketbook-based. “Kids are prone to risky behavior because they feel immortal. The most tried-and-true method, especially with adolescents, is to raise the price of cigarettes.”
Are those “losers” now in jail or on the dole,or even dead?
Might be interesting to do a follow up and see how they turned out.
Dragnet? My bad, I should have said 53 years ago.
It was a cool scene until the fuzz showed up. Then we had to cheese it!
How does one move ‘up to’ Nevada, unless if from Latin America?
There are two diehards that smoke on the sidewalk.
Uhh, Nevada is not a border state. Besides I moved 500 miles north, which I consider up. But as far as latitude, much of california, most of arizona, new mexico, texas, florida are further south than even Las Vegas
Ha ha—East Coaster here who has been to Las Vegas many times. Don’t know what I was thinking. (Other than that it’s down from me.)
In most places you are correct. A few states may have made it illegal for them to smoke as well, but I'm not sure off top of my head.
When all the usual suspects - cancer society, lung association, etc. wanted to raise the age for purchase to 18 in Delaware, language was also included to make it illegal for them to smoke as well. Guess who had that language removed? Yup, the lung association, cancer society, etc. They claimed it was unfair to the little kiddies because they were "addicts."
These nannies make my head spin.
When I was in high school(when dinosaurs ruled the world) the major groups were greasers, soc's, jocks and the rest of us. It was the greasers that smoked.
Then maybe they ought to consider that teenagers don't like being manipulated by THEM.
I hate public health nazis.
The trouble with high school is that the qualities considered “cool” by some are not the qualities that help you do well later in life.
I use to buy cigarettes and tell them they were for my mom : )
That was in the early 80’s, I remember driving to Idaho because we could drink their @ 19 and no one would even bother carding us, we were 16.
You are correct about young adults being coddled.
Bingo!
I had lunch today with a large group at a consulting engagement, and the topic of tattoos came up.
An attractive 30ish woman commented that when she was 16, she told her mom she was going to get a tattoo. Her mom replied fine, they’re great!, whatever.
Her reaction at the time was, Oh, mom’s OK with it, maybe it’s not so cool.
Brilliant reverse psychology by mom.
You forgot ECON 102, An increase in the price of an item, will simply shift the item’s sale to criminals and the black market.
Happening all over the country as we type.
The entire anti smoking movement is not predicated on some altruistic benevolent concern for the health of mankind. Anti smoking groups are greedier liars then Big Tobacco. They get their funding to pay for the leases on their Mercedes Benz E350 from Big Phrma front groups peddling useless nicotine patches, gums for $50. Great racket.
That’s why they oppose alternative nicotine delivery systems like electronic cigarettes. It’s all about the $$$$$ and protecting their paymasters.
If you really personally want kids to stop smoking, do the right thing. Stop encouraging them by being a tool.
Film a PSA commercial where you smoke a cigarette, look into the camera and say:
“If you want to be just like me, Drango, don’t ever smoke.”
No kid would ever smoke again. Do it for the children.
Goofs like you make inhaling carbon monoxide cool.
Yes, those vape things are a pretty interesting alternative to cigs, and like you say, are definitely a threat to high-$$ patches and such.
Hey Eric...whatup? Long time no see...turn your kids into addicts yet?
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