Cigarette Smoking Amond College Students Essay Research

Cigarette Smoking Amond College Students Essay, Research Paper

“Cigarette smoking has been described as the most important health risks in the United States” (medaccess). That is just one of the many reasons for me to research the topic of cigarette smoking. Smoking is prevalent among people of all ages in this country. However, I focused on the habits of college students only. The main objective of this research is to determine if smoking habits of parents of college students have any influence on the students’ decision to smoke or not smoke. There are many questions surrounding for what reasons people smoke. It was interesting to look into the motives for smoking behaviors, especially among my peers. Many people die every year in this country and around the world every year. Maybe after some people read this they will think twice before lighting up their next cigarette. After all, “cigarette smoking is the single most important cause of preventable death in the United States” (smoking). In doing my research, the first thing that must be done is to define “cigarette smoking” and what it actually means to be a “smoker.” There is no actual standard set for how much or how often a person smokes to stereotype them with the characteristic of a “smoker.” For my purposes and the purposes of this project I have set my own standards to clarify and make my research in general easier to understand. I have recently “quit” smoking and I still occasionally have a cigarette, but still do not consider myself a “smoker.” On the other hand, I do not believe someone should have to be a chain smoker to be considered a “smoker.” So, for research purposes, I chose an intermediate standard. A “smoker” will be someone who smokes cigarettes at least once a day, with going no longer than two days without having a cigarette. In my belief, smoking on a regular basis constitutes someone as a smoker, even if they smoke only one cigarette per day. In some peoples’ eyes, a person has to smoke a pack a day or more to be considered a smoker. I think this is inaccurate, and beside the fact of inaccuracy, if I characterized a smoker as someone who smokes a pack a day I probably would not have gotten any solid information. Information about cigarette smoking is very easily obtainable. However, in all the sources that I have looked into, I have only found one that discusses reasons for smoking being linked to parental smoking habits. The only piece of information I found was in the internet source Bad Effects of Cigarette Smoking on the Body! It states: “people with parents who smoke are more likely to begin smoking than those who have non-smoking parents” (bad effects). So that is with what I have to work. In a way I think this is good because if I was constantly reading about how this is true or not true, some bias may be involved in my research. As long as my research material has been documented in another source I think it will be easily researched. I plan to study behaviors of smokers based on that idea. So what I am left with is a virtually inexhaustible amount of facts associated with smoking cigarettes, some of which I will present. This will be to prove how dangerous cigarette smoking is and maybe to convince some parents that smoking around their children, no matter what their ages, may not be the best idea in the world. The next objective, then, is to provide information on the dangers and consequences of smoking. As most people probably know, cigarette smoking is extremely harmful to your health. In the United States each year “16% of all deaths can be attributed to smoking” and smoking cigarettes is also “the number one cause of death in men” (the facts). Also, “85% of lung cancer (now the leading cause of death among men and women) deaths could be avoided if the individual did not smoke” (Riche). Furthermore, “women who smoke are dying at twice the rate of women who do not smoke” (Riche). And finally, along with cancer, cigarette smoking also contributes to cardiovascular diseases and reproductive difficulties. From personal experiences, I have had family members die from smoking cigarettes, and many of my friends also smoke. That alone makes this project a small bit personal. As you can see by the facts listed above, smoking is extremely dangerous. I could go on and on with interesting and some rather astounding facts and numbers associated with this subject, but I believe the point is given. The question at hand still remains: why do people smoke? In doing “informal research” (talking to my friends more or less) I found many different and quite interesting answers. Some people do it to relax, some for the buzz it provides, some do it to occupy their hands, while most do it just because they are flat out addicted to nicotine. I do it simply for something to do. When I am drinking or driving on a long trip in the car or many other times. The most interesting answer I received, however, was, “I don’t know why, I just started one day and haven’t quit yet.” That answer alone makes me wonder if the parents of that person had anything to do with their decision to smoke. This leads me into my hypotheses. My first hypothesis is as follows: “A majority of college students who smoke cigarettes do so because their parents smoke or did smoke while they were being raised.” I searched for more of a correlation factor than a causation factor. This is because when doing the research, I looked at if the parents smoked whi