As our Grade 6 students think about and get ready for junior high school, some are developing a greater curiosity about what is "cool". In our lessons this week, we discussed some of the myths, falsehoods and dangers about smoking. Here are some the "True/False" quiz questions that our students contemplated. (Answers are below each picture/graphic)
FALSE. Smoking causes premature aging and puts stress on your internal organs, including your heart and lungs.
FALSE. In younger people, 3 out of 4 deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.
FALSE. The effects of smoking contribute to heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs amputated.
FALSE. Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking.
FALSE. Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs. The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels.
FALSE. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, including the tongue; causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general.
FALSE. Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.
FALSE. Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
FALSE. Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.
FALSE. Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers eg. cancers of the bladder, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx (voice box), esophagus, cervix, kidney, lung, pancreas, and stomach, and causes acute myeloid leukemia.
FALSE. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
FALSE. 1 in 2 lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.
For more information (available in English or Chinese, you can visit these websites: Taiwan Smokers' Helpline or Quit and Win.
