Healthy Life Styles
Smoking and Its Effects on YOU!
I.
Title: Smoking and Its Effects on You!
II. Objective:
1. SWBAT understand the social issues involved in tobacco use, including
advertising.
2. SWBAT know that smoking affects a person’s risk of getting cancer,
cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease.
3. SWBAT understand how smoking adversely affects fetal health,
evaluate the risk to nonsmokers associated with environmental tobacco
smoke (secondhand smoke).
4. SWBAT describe strategies people adopt to quit using tobacco.
III.
Materials:
1. Advertisements from magazines or newspapers
2. Vocabulary:
 Snuff - powdered tobacco. It may be inhaled or chewed. It is sniffed and
absorbed through the mucous membrane of the nose, or placed inside
the mouth against the cheek/gum.
 Chewing tobacco - string-like tobacco. It may be placed inside the mouth
against the cheek/gum and chewed or sucked.
 Nicotine - the psychoactive stimulant of tobacco products. It causes
addiction. It is a colorless liquid that turns brown in oxygen.
 Tar - thick, brownish, sticky substance. It condenses in the lungs, and
shows on teeth and fingers from particulate matter burned in tobacco.
 Carbon Monoxide (CO) - a gas found in cigarette and cigar smoke. It binds
with oxygen receptor sites in the blood. The blood "prefers" to carry
CO to cells instead of oxygen.
 CO kills the cells. Oxygen keeps cells healthy.
IV. Procedure:
 Warm-up:
 Ask class: What is the single most preventable death in the United States?
 Answer: Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death in the United
States of America and many other countries. Each year smoking claims
more lives than alcohol, and drug abuse combined. More Americans die
each year from tobacco-related health problems than those who died in
World War 1, World War 11, and the Vietnam War combined. Over 500,000
Americans die each year of tobacco-related diseases (cancer, emphysema,
and heart disease).
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Exercise:
 Show several one-page advertisements for smoking.
 Discuss following facts and question.
 Facts: In 1987, cigarette induced lung cancer had surpassed breast cancer as
the leading form of cancer death in women. Cigarette advertisements are
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directed at all ages of people, and social and ethnic groups. Children and
teenagers constitute 90% of all new smokers. Why?
Possible responses:
rebellion
"looks cool"
physiological addiction
liberating to be in control
manly appearance
"diet" of cigarettes instead of fat/food to lose weight
modeling parental behaviors
The facts:
Smoking is most common form of tobacco use.
It delivers a strong dose of nicotine to smokers, along with 4000 other
chemicals, gases, and vapors that carry particulate matter
in concentrations that are 500,000 times greater than the most
air-polluted cities in the world.
FACTS: Particulate matter condenses in lungs to form tar - a thick, brown,
sticky substance.
It contains cancer-causing substances such as benzopyrene and phenol - both
of which contribute to lung cancer.
In healthy lungs, millions of tiny hair-like tissues called "cilia" work to sweep
away foreign matter through coughing. Nicotine paralyzes cilia for over an
hour after smoking one cigarette. Tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide gas all
diminish the capacity of oxygen, causing oxygen deprivation in body tissues,
especially in the brain, heart, and lungs.
Heat from tobacco smoke can reach 1,616 degrees Fahrenheit. Inhaling hot
gases and vapors exposes sensitive mucous membranes to irritating chemicals
that weaken tissues and contribute to the development of cancers of the mouth,
throat, and larynx.
Note: Smoking ages the tissues of arteries by 10 years. It also causes
premature wrinkling of the skin, especially the face. Women smoke to lose
weight and end up looking older than they are!
Clove cigarettes contain 40% cloves, and 60% tobacco.
They contain higher levels of tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide than regular
cigarettes.
The chemical in cloves is EUGENOL.
This chemical produces a numbing effect and allows smokers to inhale the
smoke more deeply into the lungs.
Exercise: Why do people continue to smoke when it so dangerous to their
health?
Possible Answer: Nicotine is a central nervous system stimulant. It activates
the cerebral cortex to produce an aroused, and alert mental state. It also
stimulates the adrenal glands thereby increasing the production of adrenaline.
The heart rate and breathing rate increases. Blood pressure rises because blood
vessels re constricted. Nicotine decreases stomach contractions that indicate
hunger. It decreases blood sugar levels. It decreases taste bud activity and
reduces appetite. This means the smoker eats less and loses weight ... at a very
high cost to the organs of the body.
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Young smokers are often "hooked" after their first cigarette. Though they
experience "nicotine poisoning" (dizziness, erratic pulse, sometimes nausea or
vomiting, and perhaps diarrhea) the effects cease with tolerance (smoke more
to gain same nicotine "high" as first time use), which occurs quickly after their
first smoke.
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How to Quit Smoking:
There are people who have successfully quit smoking and they believe one
should quit "cold turkey" (stop smoking completely/all at once, stop smoking
anything -no pipe, cigar, or marijuana - and do not start smoking again).
There are also people who have successfully quit smoking and they believe
one should slowly reduce the number of cigarettes he or she smokes per day,
until there is no desire to smoke.
Still others believe smokers should seek help from a doctor who may prescribe
"the patch" (various doses of nicotine) so that actual smoking stops. One patch
is worn. each week, and the nicotine is absorbed through the skin. Each
succeeding patch has less and less nicotine in it. After some weeks, the
nicotine in the patch is almost nothing and the person may not be addicted to
nicotine and cigarettes anymore. Problem occurs when smokers also smoke a
cigarette while wearing the patch. This reduces the successful effect of the
patch.
There are also "gums" (Nicorette) available to be chewed that provide nicotine
to enable the person to get a "fix", yet not smoke a cigarette. This method of
quitting is not as successful because many persons also smoke a cigarette
when they chew the gum.
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V.Conclusion
Have students write reasons why not to start smoking
Have students write health reasons for not smoking
Have students write about effects of second-hand smoke
Have students talk about the ‘first cigarette’ and getting hooked