How Do You Often Smoke?

Rosse Diana A. Bautista

Professor D. Selder

Eng 114

May 22, 2016

How do you often smoke?

Did you know thousands of people die from smoke related causes like cancer? You should understand that smoking causes many deaths and that is extremely dangerous. For years innocent people also die because of it. Smoking in public has the thinking of "it's my body, I can do whatever I want to it". But it’s not true because it has been proven that it also affects the people around you. It causes harm to the people and our government should do something about it. Now, this essay has the objective to persuade the reader to stop smoking because it's not just bad for one's body but also for anyone.

Breathing other people's smoke is called passive or secondhand smoking. The non smoker breathes "sidestream" smoke from the burning tip of the cigarette and "mainstream" smoke that has been inhaled and then exhaled by the smoker. Secondhand smoke is a major source of indoor air pollution. How does this affect the passive smoker?

Some of the immediate effects of passive smoking include eye irritation, headache, cough, sore throat, dizziness and nausea. Adults with asthma can experience a significant decline in lung function when exposed, while new cases of asthma may be induced in children whose parents smoke. Short term exposure to tobacco smoke also has a measurable effect on the heart in non-smokers. Just 30 minutes exposure is enough to reduce coronary blood flow. Almost half of all children in the UK are exposed to tobacco smoke at home. Passive smoking increases the risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis, pneumonia and bronchiolitis in children. One study found that in households where both parents smoke, young children have a 72 percent increased risk of respiratory illnesses. Passive smoking causes a reduction in lung function and increased severity in the symptoms of asthma in children, and is a risk factor for new cases of asthma in children. Passive smoking is also associated with middle ear infection in children as well as possible cardiovascular impairment and behavioral problems.

Infants of parents who smoke are more likely to be admitted to hospital for bronchitis and pneumonia in the first year of life. More than 17,000 children under the age of five are admitted to hospital every year because of the effects of passive smoking. Passive smoking during childhood predisposes children to developing chronic obstructive airway disease and cancer as adults. Exposure to tobacco smoke may also impair olfactory function in children. A Canadian study found that passive smoking reduced children's ability to detect a wide variety of odors compared with children raised in non-smoking households. Passive smoking may also affect children's mental development. A US study found deficits in reading and reasoning skills among children even at low levels of smoke exposure. Exposure to passive smoking during pregnancy is an independent risk factor for low birth weight. A recent study has also shown that babies exposed to their mother's tobacco smoke before they are born grow up with reduced  lung function. Parental smoking is also a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome which is also known as cot death. Tobacco can cause diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema. According to the Journal of American Medical Association in 1996, "the addition of prevalence of cigarette smoking marks the first time a behavior, rather than disease or illness, has been considered nationally reportable" on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list and According to the American Lung Association, smoking-related disease claim an estimated 440,000 American lives each year. That's about 1200 deaths a day.