Peer pressure leads to smoking

Peer pressure is the main reason youths smoke.
An astonishing 46.6 per cent of those aged between 15 and 25 years said they lit their first cigarette when a friend asked them to try it.
Equally disturbing is that 36.7 per cent of youths in this age group smoked their first cigarette "for fun".
Associate Prof Lekhraj Rampal (picture), of Universiti Putra Malaysia in Serdang, said: "If we tackle the problem of smoking among this age group, they will not grow up to be adult smokers."
The other reasons youths smoked were to ease tension (8.1 per cent) and they thought it was stylish (2.7).
"Some even gave the excuse that since a parent smoked, they did too," he said, adding this was 1.8 per cent.
Prof Rampal was lead researcher of a 10-month study, carried out by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences last year, which polled 1,046 youths on this topic.
The study, funded by the Intensification of Research in Priority Areas under the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, also polled 4,705 youths, aged between 15 and 25 as well, to gauge the number of smokers.
Of the 2,080 male youths, 39.2 per cent were smokers while for females, it was 1.2 per cent of the 2,625 respondents.
Of the 1,229 Malay male respondents, 46.3 per cent were smokers and for the 1,632 female respondents, it was one per cent.
The study also polled 340 Chinese males and 19.7 per cent responded that they were smokers.
"In the case of the 374 Chinese female respondents, 2.1 per cent were smokers."
Of the 232 Indian males polled, 21.6 per cent were smokers while of the 345 Indian females, less than 0.5 per cent were smokers.
"In other words, 18 per cent of people in this age group are smokers," he said. Dr Rampal, who is also chairman of the Malaysian Medical Association’s committee on Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said the committee was willing to offer technical expertise to the authorities to curb smoking among youths.
Source