Women and girls smoke for different reasons. Some women smoke to deal with stress or control weight.
Physical and mental stress
Stressed out women are those who have a lot of responsibilities to shoulder not only at home, but also in their workplace. Too much of physical and mental pressure is difficult to deal with and when this situation arises, one looks for a remedy to ease out of it. Thus a woman may resort to smoking and other forms of addiction.
Women smoking for weight control
Weight control is another obsession in we in women who ate over weight and hefty. The present day lifestyle has increased the level of obesity in men, women and children. Leaving aside men and children, women are always too conscious about their looks and personality. They can go to any extent to get rid of any negative aspect such as obesity, which would not give them a perfect look. Although a wrong notion, but smoking is adopted by most of women who feel that probably smoking would help attain a perfect body.
Peer pressure
Peer pressure and the urge to be in with the crowd by following the trends are two main reasons which result in teenage girls picking up smoking, Says Akanksha, a student, “As a kid I always used to admire my elder cousin Rekha who used to smoke. I thought it was very daring and mod. Later it was my friends who tempted me to smoke as it was seen as a cool thing to do.”
What happens to you body when you smoke?
- Lung cancer and other lung diseases, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
- Other kinds of cancer, such as cancer of the throat, mouth, esophagus(food pipe), pancreas, kidney, bladder and cervix(opening to the uterus or womb)
- Atherosclerosis clogged and narrowed arteries
- Heart disease, heart attack, stroke
- Earl menopause: the stopping of menstrual periods
- Osteoperesis the thinning and weakening of bones
- Infertility: problems in getting pregnant
Smoking while pregnant
Problems during pregnancy like miscarriage, early or premature birth, having an infant born with low birth weight, stillbirth, and even infant death.