By Lee Hyo-sik
One out of every 10 female high-school students smoke cigarettes habitually, ringing alarm bells at schools and with parents in search of an effective way to discourage young women from picking up the habit.
According to a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHSA), Wednesday, the smoking rate among female high-school students stood at 10.2 percent in 2009, up from 2.4 percent in 1992. The rate of female middle school students rose to 5.1 percent from 2.8 percent over the same period.
Smokers are defined as those lighting up at least once a month. About 7.4 percent of adult women were found to smoke regularly in 2009, up from 5.1 percent in 1992.
“I am pretty positive that more young women smoke in reality than the official statistics indicate because many are reluctant to publically admit they are smokers. Also, an even larger proportion of female students now smoke cigarettes than in 2009,” a KIHSA fellow Suh Mee-kyung said.
Suh said female adolescents are easily influenced by outside factors, stressing that if they are encouraged by teachers, parents, friends and anti-smoking campaigners, they are more likely to quit before reaching adulthood.
“The government first needs to introduce a monitoring system to understand how and where young female students learn to smoke cigarettes, in order to draw up an effective anti-smoking policy. Additionally, it should be made much tougher than it currently is for them to purchase cigarettes,” the fellow said.
She added a nationwide full-fledged anti-smoking campaign should be launched to increase the awareness among adolescents of the cigarette’s negative effects on their health.
Meanwhile, the study found a strong correlation between female adolescents’ tendency to smoke and parents’ wealth, occupation and education. The lower the socioeconomic background of the parents, the more likely their children will smoke.
