About Smoking

We have all heard the ever popular phrases, "Do you want to quit smoking?", "Quit smoking now!", "Smoking is bad for your health!" Everyone knows that smoking is a bad thing to do, but yet that does not stop people from doing it. I am a smoker. I know the risks of smoking, but I still do it. I know that I am at risk for a lot of health problems, but it is not something that I concern myself with as much as I should. There are many campaigns to lure people to give up their bad habit, but we write them off. There are many reasons that people feel they need to smoke. Many people feel like it makes them cooler if they smoke, because it is something we see celebrities and movie stars doing. Some people smoke to fit in. People may also do it to rebel against parents, the government, etc. It is also something that you can pick up if you grew up around it your whole life. I grew up around a family of smokers so I feel like I was doomed to be a smoker myself, but it also a stress reliever, in my opinion. Smoking can be seen as a way out of a stressful situation, like a break from the everyday life. Smokers know the risks of this habit, but yet it is a habit that they just cannot kick.

The side effects of smoking are obvious and most people know many of them. Cancer is a very big side effect of smoking. Smokers can get different types of cancer while smoking, but the most common is lung cancer. Smoking also causes shortness of breath, sore throat, coughing, yellow teeth, yellow fingernails, bad breath, and smoke scent on your clothes. So I say again, that we all know that smoking is bad. These signs are all very apparent, but smokers do not seem to care.

Campaigns to get people to stop smoking are something you constantly see. Every time you walk into a doctor's office or hospital you cannot help but to notice the posters on the wall related to the effects of smoking. You also see commercials about the dangers of smoking every time you turn on the television. I find that most of these ads do not ever affect the way people think, but when I found this ad, it really hit close to the heart.

The ad that I have chosen is a picture of a woman's breast turned to the side. You can see that the nipple of her breast has been replaced with the end of a cigarette; known as the filter. There is a cloud of smoke coming out of the filter of the cigarette. The background is a grey color to keep focus directly on the woman's breast. I feel like this ad probably offends a lot of people with the crudeness of the picture, but, on the other hand, I feel like people need to see these things. The text beside the ad states," Women who smoke feed more than just milk to their children." The text beside the picture of the ad brings everything together. At the bottom of the ad it states," Research indicates that chemicals from tobacco smoke are transmitted via breast milk. So, stop smoking."

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