Anti-smoking campaign for teenage girls does not soften the truth about the impact of smoking.
On National No Smoking Day, the Mid Western Health Board has launched an initiative aimed at teenage girls, the group with the biggest growth rate in terms of taking up the habit.
In both her professional and personal life nurse Antoinette Slattery has seen the toll that smoking cigarettes has taken on patients and family. She is working with the Mid Western Health on a pilot project which educates secondary school students in Shannon and Limerick on the dangers of smoking.
Annette Slattery says most teenage girls are unaware of the thousands of chemicals contained in each cigarette, which include,
Nail polish remover, arsenic, radioactive fallout, car battery fluid.
Teenage girls are now in the biggest growth group for smoking in Ireland. The desire to be thin is one reason for starting, says Silvia Maloney from St Caimin's College in Shannon.
I presumed if they were smoking, they weren’t putting on weight.
Giving the hard facts about what smoking does to one’s appearance and health in the short term is also par for the course, as Dr Ray Mulready from Limerick Regional Hospital explains,
Premature wrinkling of the skin, hair loss, gum decay, tooth decay.
Already the programme has been effective, with participants reducing the number of cigarettes they smoke as they recognise the negative impacts of smoking,
You can smell people who smoke and it is horrible.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 17 February 1999. The reporter is Cathy Halloran.
