SMOKING AMONG YOUNGSTERS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 10 AND 19 IS ON THE RISE

2009/05/31, Dr Nabilla Abdul Mohsein Al-Sadat says Malay adolescents are three times more likely to start smoking as youngsters of other races

"MY father is my hero and he smokes. He often asks me to buy cigarettes for him.

"I don't think he would let me do anything dangerous so I don't think smoking is dangerous at all."

These were the startling words of a 14-year-old girl from Gombak when asked why she had started smoking.

Smoking among adolescents (youngsters between the ages of 10 and 19) is on the rise.

 One in 10 girls smoked, according to a Universiti Malaya study which looked at over 2,900 students, between the ages of 13 and 16, in Selangor.

The study was conducted in 2006 by Associate Professor Dr Nabilla Abdul Mohsein Al-Sadat, who is the head of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine Family Health Unit.

The study found that the girls started to experiment with cigarettes as early as the age of nine.

 It also found that one in five adolescents had starting smoking by the age of 15, with the average age of initiation being 11.4 years

A survey by the Youth and Sports Ministry in 1995 on the behaviour of 5,000 adolescents involved in drug addiction found that 80 per cent had smoked cigarettes at least once.

"This shows that smoking is an activity that is highly associated with adolescents involved in high-risk activities," Dr Nabilla said.

 In the last 10 years, she said, tobacco use among adolescent girls had doubled from 4.8 per cent to nine per cent.

"This is disturbing."

The study, said Dr Nabilla, also found that the odds were three times higher for Malays to start smoking compared with other races.

Globally, the use of tobacco among women and young girls is on the rise, whereas for men it is on the decline.

Dr Nabilla also did another study involving one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions with adolescent girls, mostly aged between 14 and 21 from urban schools.

This study found that girls took up smoking because of peer influence, seeing their parents smoke, the misguided belief that it could alleviate stress and that it would impress others.

"One of those involved in the discussions said she started smoking when she was six. Her father had passed her a cigarette.

"He had told her to try it, saying he was sure she would not like it, but instead she did. And she is a smoker today."

The study was conducted from November 2005 to February 2006 in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya.

On the influence of the media and advertisements on adolescent girls, Dr Nabilla said: "Most said the media were not the primary factor that got them started but it was the availability of cigarettes from family and friends.

"But the more frequently cigarettes appeared in the media, the more they felt it was alright to continue to smoke."

Most of them reported that they only smoked outside their homes and their parents were unaware of it.

The majority of them described themselves as kaki lepak (those who loiter around shopping malls) and late-sleepers on non-school days.

 "They smoke three or four cigarettes a day. A few of them acknowledged they were heavy smokers (a pack of 20 cigarettes a day).

 "Most do know the health risks associated with smoking. The most frequently cited reason for initiation into smoking was peer influence."

Dr Nabilla said prevention strategies should begin in primary schools.

"Findings of gender and cultural differences in smoking influences suggest that smoking prevention and intervention programmes need to be sensitive to the culture and gender of smokers."