Physical Wellness

Younger Women Buck the Trend of Giving up Smoking

By Kanika Gupta | Update Date: Feb 19, 2016 02:48 PM EST

Younger women are seen resisting the anti-smoking trend, revealed latest official figures. While the trend of men who smoke has hit an all time low, for the women, the fall in the smoking trend for women seems to have halted. In fact, among women, there was an increase in smoking from last year, albeit small, as per the figures revealed by Office of National Statistics. In general, the figures show that the rate of smoking in Britain have seen a dramatic decrease due to health awareness and lifestyle change adopted by many.

Since 1974, the number of men who smoked fell to 20% from 51%. However, in women, during the same period, it decreased from 41% to 17%. While the figure for men fell down 2% since 2013, the female statistics remained unchanged at 17%. ONS also reported that there has been a slight increase in the number of women smoker since then.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) said: "The slowdown in smoking rates is worrying.

"The evidence is clear that if we are to continue to drive down smoking we need a comprehensive tobacco control policy that includes mass media campaigns and help for smokers who want to quit."

The research also indicated that vaping, use of e-cigarettes, is also on the rise. 53% people say that it helped them quit smoking, 22% believed that it is less harmful than smoking the actual tobacco and less than 10% admitted to smoking e-cigarettes because they were allowed to smoke indoors, as reported by Telegraph

Ms Arnott said: "This is encouraging as e-cigarettes are far safer than tobacco products and using them as a quitting aid will significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer caused by smoking."

But Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: "E-cigarettes shouldn't be seen as a permanent alternative to smoking, and these figures confirm that they don't work for everyone as a quitting aid.

"However, if you haven't successfully quit using other methods, including your local smoking cessation services, then it may well be worth trying e-cigarettes, with an aim of eventually quitting them too."

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