The health risk of smoking is a well-known fact. It affects people’s life in different ways. Smoking undermines the public’s health by both making smokers ill and threatening the health of the bystanders.
There are different causes of smoking. As a rule, individuals start smoking in their teens and keep this bad habit during their adulthood. Generally speaking, this addiction is very strong and individuals cannot quit it for many years because they feel a tobacco dependence. Teenagers usually start smoking to show their maturity and to look like their friends. Most of all, they want to look older, and to them smoking seems to be the main way to achieve this. They are tired of being controlled by their parents and teachers, and smoking helps them display their independence. In particular, they observe smoking of their parents and other adults and see it as a sign of maturity. Due to their false visions of maturity, they believe that smoking can help them look cool. Furthermore, they are excited to do what is forbidden to them.
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The second cause of smoking for teenagers is to look like their friends who experiment with cigarettes. Since they see them smoking, they cannot stay away from them because teenagers have different values than adults do. To create relationships with peers, they believe they should do the same things as those do. Thus, smoking and drinking become a behavioral pattern for most teenagers. It is hard to behave differently from others, and not all teenagers are strong enough to resist this bad influence. As a result, smoking becomes an attribute of different parties that attract young people. Adults, on the other hand, smoke for different reasons such as pressure, stress, and various other problems. However, some people assume that smoking brings pleasure to them. They associate smoking with a drug that can help them in stressful situations. Above all, no matter what the reason is, smoking that begins, as a rule, in young adulthood, remains with a person for years.
Smoking is very harmful to every organ of the human body and causes various diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and can even become a cause of premature death. Clabby (2011) noted that in the USA, smoking leads to 480,000 deaths every year. According to Clabby (2011), “smoking causes more effects on the human life than alcohol, drug use, motor vehicle, and firearm incidents combined’ (p.146). The point is that poisonous smoke weakens the body’s immune system that is supposed to kill cancer cells. Therefore, a smoking person blocks its immune system, and cancer cells begin to grow uncontrollably, damaging the DNA. As a result, the growing number of cancer cells leads to a cancer tumor.
Many findings reveal that smoking is one of the main causes of cardiovascular diseases. (Tavernise, 2015, p. 2). This bad habit affects blood vessels, which is the main reason for stroke and heart attack. Admittedly, cardiovascular diseases are among the main causes of premature death in the United States. Many findings show that even limited amount of cigarettes a day (about five) can lead to early signs of this disease (“How does smoking affect the heart and blood vessels?”, n.d.). Smoking affects blood vessels, making blocks that prevent blood from normal circulation to the brain. Blockages can also reduce blood flow to the skin and legs. For the most part, when combined with other factors (e.g. unhealthy cholesterol, overweight, and high blood pressure), smoking rises the possibility of acquiring a heart disease. Overall, smoking has no advantages. Moreover, this bad habit possesses numerous disadvantages, including financial expenses.
To sum up, different causes of smoking lead to negative effects that can ruin the human life. Smokers should realize what kind of danger they put themselves in with their bad habit. Moreover, they should consider that not only they harm themselves, but also threaten the health of bystanders who become secondhand smokers.