Tobacco use amongst women is a new area of concern around anti-tobacco campaigns. Emerging trends seem to suggest that more women are starting to smoke in certain parts of the world more than as been the case in years past. This is also evidenced by a growing number of tobacco campaigns targeted at women and younger girls. This growth is largely explained by the new economic freedoms being gained in countries in Asia particularly China. It would appear economic prosperity is working to break traditional perceptions and arrangements associated with women.
In the developing world the changing cultural issues driven by globalization form a sound account for these increases in female tobacco use. In fact in some countries such as Norway and Sweden women smoke cigarettes as much as men do. When cigarettes are introduced to young girls such as being vigorously sought by the tobacco industry they get hooked at an early stage. In the process they also attract other young people through peer pressure and influence. A recent study done in the United States showed that tobacco use done at an early age will affect the brain part of things which is in charge of decision making.
In the process the brain will make poor decisions which will result in the young person continuing to smoke even in adulthood. In fact the research appears to suggest that this is one of the main reasons why teens who smoke continue to smoke decades later in life. The global outlook of things is that more men smoke ten or more times more than women. This is the case in about 26 countries across the world. In many other countries at least 10 to 19 percent of smoking is amongst females aged 15 and over.
It is amazing that the heavily funded tobacco industry continues looking forward to a special loop-hole based on their studies for growth and opportunity in the female smoking sector. This is supported by their 1976 study report done by the British American Tobacco (BAT). The report summary is that women are more highly motivated to smoke than men and that once women start smoking they find even harder to stop smoking than men. Since these findings there has been a concerted effort in the tobacco world to develop female oriented cigarettes which many suspect have high deliveries of nicotine.
Perhaps from the global overview of things this explains why female tobacco uptake has been on an upward trend. This of course is supported by other fierce natural changes happening on the global stage already mentioned such as globalization. To halt this trend perhaps governments and other anti-smoking campaigners will have to dig deeper than done in this article to unearth the real cause of this trend. From that perspective intervention programs can then be designed to deal with the problem.