◊ Smoking: Death Toll Will Double by 2020 ◊
You might think that with all the awareness campaigns the level of smoking would have decreased through the years. However, studies have shown that an increasing number of teenagers and younger people have picked up the smoking habit. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey, conducted by U.S. Centers for Disease Control researchers and international public health officials, studied the habits and health status of more than 750,000 teenagers in over 130 countries across the world, and came to the conclusion that by the year 2020, 10 million people will be dying each year from smoking-related health causes.
According to this Global Youth Tobacco Survey, teen smoking rates are around 9% worldwide. In addition, 11% of young people around the world report using chewing tobacco, hookah pipes and other tobacco products. The smoking gap between males and females have also decreased through the years. Past studies estimated that young males were approximately four times more likely to smoke than girls. However, more recent research by the Centers for Disease Control and others shows the disparity to be growing smaller by the year. In some countries, male and female teen smoking rates were roughly identical.
Peer pressure is a main factor in the increase of smoking among teenagers, as well as the rise in popularity of hookah bars, where users can smoke flavored tobacco. Often users claim that it is safer to hookah than to smoke a regular cigarette due to fewer cancer-causing carcinogens, but the fact still remains that smoking will kill you eventually.
Statistics gathered from Lifescript
