Table of Contents
Intro
It is said that smoking can be very dangerous to your health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that typically people begin to smoke in their young years. That means that young kids could be smoking right now. According to the CDC nearly half of all high school students in the United States have stated that they have tried a tobacco product at least once. Research has shown that your brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five. Therefore, smoking can put a very big or dangerous impact onto your brain. Patricia Folan, RN, DNP, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York, says that young adults being exposed to nicotine early could affect concentration and memory in a bad way. Most kids that this affects are still in some sort of school, whether it be middle school, high school, or even college.
- Thesis: In most ways, you are considered an adult at the age of 18, but when it comes to your brain, it has not grown to its full maturity until the age of twenty-five. Therefore underage smoking can be very bad for your health.
- Preview statement: Supporting my argument, we will be looking at how smoking is bad for your brain, why most young adults or children smoke, and things you could do to help young smokers.
- Transition: Looking through all of my articles about young smokers, I have found many reasons as to why smoking is bad for your brain.
Body
When most people are thinking about starting to smoke they don’t typically think of the damage that it could do to your brain. There are many negative effects on your brain caused by smoking. According to healthline.com, Lori A. Russell-Chapin, PhD, says that “Nicotine mimics several neurotransmitters, [which send signals] in the brain. Since nicotine is similar in shape to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, signaling increases in the brain,”. This is bad because it will cause your brain to age much quicker and start to deteriorate the muscle and nerves in your body and brain.
Transition: We have now addressed how smoking can affect your brain. Now we can move onto why most young adults or children smoke.
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According to cdc.gov nearly eight out of every one-hundred (aged 18-24) young adults smoke. One of the main reasons that young adults get into smoking is because of family or relatives. According to drugfree.org researchers found that kids who have parents who are consistent smokers the oldest child was then influenced to smoke, which then would significantly increase the likeliness for the younger children to begin smoking. Another reason that I think personally could have effects from the parents smoking could be the risk of second hand smoke. If your parents or siblings smoke in the home you are living in you are more of a risk to second hand smoke. Second hand smoke is exposing your brain to the nicotine and all of the harmful chemicals in cigarettes causing yourself to become addicted without you even trying.
Transition: Now that we know the causes of young smokers we can look at ways to help stop young smoking.
Mayo clinic states that the number one way to help stop young smokers is to set a good example. Setting a good example would be if you are a parent who smokes, try to quit. If you are a going-to-be parent quit smoking before you decide to have the baby. Mayo clinic also says to not smoke around the young adult or leave the materials out for the young adult to get. If you put the materials away or do not smoke at all it could significantly reduce the likeliness of your child smoking.
Conclusion
Today we looked at why smoking is bad for an underage brain, why most young adults smoke, and how to help keep young adults from smoking. We no longer can sit around and watch as some young adults do illegal things. We can help them and make them understand the dangers and why it is important for them to wait if they choose to smoke. We need to make the choice to help our youth.
