According to the Mayo Clinic, lung cancer is the leading cause of death in the world. This type of cancer starts as a growth of cells in the lungs, and quickly takes over. As many people know, smoking along with second hand smoke, causes a significant increase in the chance of developing lung cancer. Smoking doesn’t just pose the threat of lung cancer, it can cause all types of cancer throughout the body.
Smoking is putting unhealthy chemicals and toxins into your body that don’t belong there, putting these unwanted toxins into your body is going to cause many unwanted side effects that will stay with you for the long haul.
“Smoking is going to affect the lungs, so it’s going to irritate the lining all the way through the lungs and the bronchial tubes and cause breathing issues,” said Mrs. Abraham, Department Chair of P.E., Health, and Driver’s Ed.
Smoking a cigarette once isn’t going to immediately cause cancer, or cause any of the crazy side effects you hear about in health class, but once the addiction starts, smoking one everyday is where the trouble begins.
“[Smoking] every single day for years and years, there’s a build up, inflammation in the lung, and it can lead to lung cancer. People know the effects, it’s just the addiction,” said Coach Jebbia, Health and P.E. teacher.
Alongside those effects, there will also be many more side effects if cancer develops, but even if a smoker manages to avoid cancer, their quality of life will still forever be lowered due to lung damage. Lung health is vital because you have to be able to breath, when you are young you don’t take into consideration the little tasks that could become harder with age.
“Young people need to think about themselves in thirty years, young people we go about our day with ease,” said Abraham. “We can get out of bed, but when you get older, and you’ve been smoking for a long time, those tasks become big things.”
Living a long and healthy life is the goal for many people, the key to achieve that is healthy lungs. Living your best life can not be obtained when you’re putting chemicals into your body.
“You want to create good habits now, and as you get older you want your lungs to function at the best level,” said Coach Jebbia.
While the posed threat of lung cancer comes mostly from smoking a cigarette doesn’t mean that vaping doesn’t also pose a serious threat to our lungs and health. Research on vaping is still limited because it is such a new phenomenon, but all signs point to the long term effects won’t be good.
“You’ve got to think with all the chemicals in there, that it’s going to lead to bad things,” said Coach Jebbia.
There is just about every flavor of vape out there, and this is problematic because fruity flavors draw the attention of a much younger crowd than cigarettes ever did. Many school aged kids will hit a vape without truly knowing what they are consuming, just because of the enticing flavors and of course to “look cool.”
“My biggest fear is high school-aged kids, taking a hit of something that they don’t know what fully is in there all the time,” said Jebbia.
Vaping may seem like it is not as serious as smoking because there is no smoke involved, but that is not the case, you don’t know what is truly inside of a vape.
“It’s a toxin in general that shouldn’t be in your body,” said Abraham. “Kids think it’s safer, it’s not a big deal, it’s just vapor, everybody’s doing it so it’s ok, but it’s not”.
If you or someone you know is already stuck in this cycle of addiction, it is never too late to quit. There are many resources out there for people of all ages to talk to.
“There are resources out there for vaping in particular, there is a number you can text,” said Mrs. Abraham.
You can text ditch vape to 88709, or you can call 1-800-quit-now, or you can visit teen.smokefree.gov and mylifemyquit.org for help. As always reaching out to a trusted person, whether that is a parent, a close friend, a counselor, or even a coach is always an option. You are never alone.
