Category Archives: Tobacco cessation
Kick Butts Day! 2013: The Fight Against Youth Tobacco Use Continues
Today is “Kick Butts Day!”—an annual Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) effort to emphasize the dangers of tobacco while empowering kids to lead the fight against its use by encouraging their peers, family and community members to stay tobacco-free.
The United States continues to make great strides when it comes to combating youth smoking. According to the CTFK report “America’s Most Wanted Tobacco Villains: The Usual Suspects, New Villains and Emerging Threats,” about 18.1 percent of high school students smoked in 2011, down from a high of 36.4 percent in 1997. Even still, about 1,000 kids become regular smokers each day. The report highlights the biggest tobacco threats and how they’re working to get kids addicted to the deadly substance.
As part of Kick Butts Day 2013, CTFK created two infographics.
Great American Smokeout: Quit Now, See Benefits in 20 Minutes
Today is the Great American Smokeout, set up 37 years ago by the American Cancer Society to help smokers quit. The day, always the Thursday before Thanksgiving, is meant to be a prompt to set a "quit day" to make a give up smoking.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has some compelling numbers on why it’s never too late to quit:
- Twenty minutes after a smoker quits, their heart rate drops.
- Twelve hours after quitting, the carbon monoxide levels in a smoker’s blood drops to normal.
- As early as two weeks after quitting, a smoker’s heart attack risk begins to drop and their lung function begins to improve.
- Three weeks after quitting, the physical symptoms of nicotine addiction stop.
- As early as one month after quitting, former smokers can notice less coughing and shortness of breath.
Trained smoking cessation coaches are standing by to help smokers today—and every day:
- Call 1-800 QUIT NOW (1-800 784-8669)
- Get resources from SmokeFree.gov (also in Spanish)
- Members of the military can contact Quit Smoking-Make Everyone Proud
>>Bonus: The American Cancer Society and George Washington University are sponsoring online surveys about quitting smoking, and selected participants can get $50 in Amazon gift cards if they complete all the surveys.
How Are You Celebrating Kick Butts Day?
It’s Kick Butts Day! Organized by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), the goal of the day is to empower kids to lead the fight against tobacco use by encouraging their peers, family and community members to stay tobacco-free.
This year, Kick Butts Day comes two weeks after a new report by the U.S. Surgeon General found that, while the nation has made great progress in reducing youth smoking, youth tobacco use remains a “pediatric epidemic” that requires urgent action.
Over 1,000 Kick Butts Day activities will take place today throughout the country including concerts, rallies, health fairs and “They put WHAT in a cigarette?” presentations. The site also offers an extraordinary list of resources that schools, health care professionals and community programs can use to help prevent kids from starting to smoke and to help them quit if they’ve started. Today, CTFK also released a new video aimed at educating and empowering kids, particularly around the issue of tobacco company marketing targeted to youth. Watch the video here:
