The age at which people begin smoking has fallen considerably in
Taiwan and one in four junior high school students have tried
cigarettes, according to a reportreaching here from Taipei on
Tuesday.
According to the results of a survey released Tuesday by the
local health department, the survey, conducted among 22,339
juniorhigh school students, showed that 27.04 percent of the
respondentshad tried smoking and that around 6.5 percent were
habitual smokers.
The tallies also show that 38 percent of the children lit
theirfirst cigarette before the age of 10, with 34.4 percent of
them doing it at home.
According to a local health expert, the prevalence of smoking
among children is due to the aggressive marketing strategies usedby
tobacco dealers, including having actors smoking in movies andTV
shows, thus making young people want to imitate them.
Taiwan health authorities will push anti-tobacco education
further to include schoolchildren below the age of eight,
promotenon-smoking campuses to counter the marketing efforts of
tobacco dealers and reduce the chances of young people taking up
the deadly habit.
(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2006)
