Smoking

*This article was written by a young person from Wigan.

The talk about smoking...we have all heard it before. But what we forget is that smoking does kill. This page about the effects of smoking is different. It isn’t just boring old information, it’s loads of information you NEED to know.

What most of us don’t get is that the younger you start smoking, the shorter your life is going to be. Each time you puff on that little white stick, minutes are shaved off your life, FACT. Not everybody is as lucky as your mate’s Nan, who’s 93 and smoked all her life!

And truthfully...you don’t look that good smoking. Especially when you have yellow fingers, yellow teeth and spotty skin from smoking, just cos your friends do.

So have a read through this page about some of the effects of smoking, good things about giving up, the cost of cigarettes, tips to help you quit and some useful websites.

Smoking can cause:

• Cancer of the nose, mouth, throat, stomach, bladder, lungs, kidneys and many more types of cancer
• Leukaemia (cancer of your blood)
• Strokes
• Gangrene
• Bronchitis
• Problems with your sight
• Heart problems
• The tar in cigarettes is black and sticky and coats your lungs, eventually it will cause breathing problems.

Smoking is the biggest single cause of ill health and early death in the UK.

Ten really good things about giving up smoking

1. You will be much fitter and won’t get as tired when you do exercise (when you give up smoking you get a health benefit within 20 minutes!)
2. You will have lovely fresh breath and be more kissable!
3. You will be able to breathe more easily
4. Your lungs, heart and blood will all be healthier
5. You will be more attractive for longer in life as you will be less likely to get early wrinkles!
6. Your hair will smell of nice shampoo instead of horrible smoke
7. Your clothes will stay smelling cleaner for longer
8. You won’t have horrible yellow teeth
9. You won’t have nasty yellow fingers
10. You will have more cash straightaway for little treats such as computer games, mobile phone top-ups, clothes, music downloads or a night out at the cinema with your mates.

The cost of cigarettes

• If you smoke just 5 cigarettes a day, in ten years time you will have spent about £4,800.
• If you smoke 20 a day this mounts up to over £19,300 in ten years.
• Imagine what else you could do with that money – you could buy a new car or go on a trip round the world!

What’s REALLY in a cigarette?

You’ve probably never thought what you’re actually breathing into your body when you have a smoke but cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals.

Some of those chemicals are the same ones as you would find in car exhaust gas, ant killer, radioactive gas, petrol, and gas chamber poison. You take in a little bit of these chemicals every time you smoke, so over time they start to destroy your body.

Top tips to help you quit 

• Pick a date to stop 
• Write a list of your personal reasons for stopping 
• Ask a friend to quit too and support each other 
• Keep busy, finding something new or different to do will help 
• Do some exercise, you will feel fitter than when you were smoking 
• Drink more water, it helps with the carvings 
• Be positive and think, ‘I can do it’. 
• Get help from one of the websites or helpline listed below.

Useful websites

• Stop smoking
• NHS smoke-free (external link)