We all already knew smoking is not good for the body, yet many people still would not kick the habit. It maybe because the temptation is too strong that they cannot resist the urge, especially when they are with their also smoker friends, or they just ignore the health warnings and enjoy what they are doing.
The consequences of smoking tobacco do not only take its toll on the smokers. The second-hand smoke they exhale and smoke from the tobacco itself hugely affects non-smokers as well. Just recently, a report was published on the British Medical Journal which says 600,000 people worldwide are killed every year by second-hand smoke. The study also found that 40% of children and 30% of non-smoking men and women breath-in second-hand smoke. The breakdown of deaths from passive smoking: 379,000 deaths from heart disease; 165,000 deaths from lower respiratory disease; 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer. According to Armando Peruga, a program manager at the World Health Organization and who led the study, the 165,000 people who died of smoke-related respiratory infection are children, mostly from Southeast Asia and Africa. These reports are alarming. The study also noted that children whose parents smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, ear infection, pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma. Their lungs may also grow more slowly than kids whose parents do not smoke.
The reports should make smokers realize that their continued puffing of cigars and cigarettes do not only put their lives in danger but also the lives of their own children. I know how hard it is to kick off the habit of smoking permanently. I myself was once hooked on cigarettes and had tried so many times to quit until I finally did it.
This coming Christmas there is no better way to give your kids a valuable gift which could preserve their health and yours too than by quitting smoke.
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