PWS Visser 2018-2019

smoking addiction Page 07
2.0 WHICH FACTORS PLAY A ROLE IN A
SMOKING ADDICTION?
Studies have shown that people under
the age of twenty are more likely to
start smoking than people above the
age of twenty. There are more men than
women that smoke regularly. On
average, 3,2% of students between the
age of 12 through 16 smoke daily, thus
have a smoking addiction. Studies have
also shown that foreigners are more
likely to have a smoking addiction than
non-foreigners. For example, 59% of
Turkish men living in the Netherlands
have a smoking addiction, whereas 31%
of Dutch men have a smoking addiction.
There is a bigger chance that teenagers
with divorced parents will start smoking.
People with a higher socioeconomic
status are less likely to start smoking
than people with a lower socioeconomic
status. On average, 6,7% of students
doing vmbo-b smoke daily, whereas
0,8% of students doing \ANO smoke
daily. There are a lot of factors that can
cause a smoking addiction. There are
social factors, availability factors,
personal factors and behavioral factors.
2.1 SOCIAL FACTORS
Under social factors we think of (for
example) the role their parents have; if
the parents smoke and what they think
of smoking. There is a bigger chance
that children with parents that smoke
will also start smoking.
U If the parents think it is normal to
smoke, then their child will probably
think the same. A study (Emory et al.,
2010) researching 19 other studies,
showed that by 16 of the 19 studies,
researchers found a connection between
non-smoking rules of parents and their
adolescent children. This study has
shown that the association between
rules of the parents and their children
came out to be stronger in families
where the parents did not smoke.
Moreover, another study showed that
non-smoking rules have a protective
impact on the transition between
nonsmoking and experimenting with
smoking. Setting up non-smoking rules
when they already are experimenting
with smoking is less effective.
They also found that non-smoking rules
had no effect when the father smoked,
but when the father did not smoke the
rules did have effect. They concluded
that when the behavior of the father did
not match the rules, the rules would not
have any effect on the adolescent.
Not only the parents play a role, their
friends do too. It is very common, peer
pressure. Adolescents fear rejection of
their smoking friends. They believe that
if they do not smoke, they will not be
part of the group. So, they will start
smoking to feel like they belong in the
group.