Archive for health

Growing Women Smokers in India

April 9, 2008 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Culture, Family, India, News, Youth, health ·Tagged , , ,

Urban Indian women are leaving a new trail - smoke. Women are catching up fast and narrowing the gap across gender lines in the domain of smoking or chewing tobacco. See a report in India Today. It is based on a World Health Organization’s global survey of tobacco usage.

Here are some disturbing finding:

  • 31% women tobacco addicts in India are between age 15-49.
  • 25% Indian women light up over 10 cigarettes per day.
  • 62% of women smokers die in their prime compared to 38% of those who don’t.
  • 1 in 20 women in India to die between age 30-69 due to tobacco in 2010s.
  • 20% girls in Delhi and Chennai studying in Class 6 smoke (AIIMS study)
  • 87% Hindi movies show onscreen smoking; 26% have a heroine who smokes.

    • In spite of the labeling that ’smoking is injurious to health’, tobacco companies continue to market new and imprved version to younger generations. Targeting women and young kids is a great marketing strategy, but why we don’t learn the damage it has caused to men and older generations. Why are bent on repeating mistakes all over again. Interesting that now they have a pink cigarette too!

    Social stigma is out and new trendy fashion statement is drawing scores of women to this addictive habit. “Me too” attitude among women and want to stand on equal footing with man prevails among modern urban Indian women. Smoking becomes a way of keeping up with men. They will not let gender disparity happen in tobacco consumption as well. How foolish!

    Some blame the media for promoting it, while other find government regulation insufficient. Bollywood now portrays many women smokers. Magazines continue to circumvent the advertisement ban on tobacco products. Sporting events continues to carry billboard of cigarette makers. Industry is promoting smoking as a cultural icon of sophistication, glamour and sexual allure and there is a large middle class women falling prey to it.

    Check out here for resource to help youth quit smoking: Anti-smoking, Teen health.

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    Illegitimate Children

    March 31, 2008 at 10:41 pm · Filed under Culture, Family, United States, health ·Tagged , , , , , ,

    In 1960, 5 percent of all pregnancies occured to unmarried mothers. By 1999, percentage rose to 33. One in every three children born in America is born to unwed mother. In 1970 it was 10.7 percent and 1980, 18.4 percent and 1990, it was 28 percent. Latest CDC stat on birth to unmarried women stands at 36.9 percent, ie 1,527,034.

    Contrary to conventional notion that most illegitimate children are not being born to teen mothers. Over the past four decades age of unmarried mother giving birth has risen from teen girls to twenties and now in thirties. Also it moved beyond black poor girls to well-to-do white and other migrant groups. See detailed stat by race from 1970 thro 2004 on unmarried childbirths in US.

    Birth control revolution that was supposed to prevent unwanted pregnancies and allow peopple freely engage in sex without any fear. Inceasingly sex-driven popular culture and anti-marriage sentiment prevalent in America today has taken any stigma out of free format sexual activity. Growing promiscuity, Cohabitation etc are only making this problem worse. But all of it is not without any consequence as many would like to believe.

    The term illegitimate children are no more in use and is considered oppressive. Out of wedlock childbirth is the more trendy usage these days. No matter how well we sugarcoat such bitter social experimentation or legislate new policies by the government, this moral crisis cannot be easily resolved. Personal sexual ethics have a larger social, cultural and political consequences. Unless we address the core moral crisis in America, nothing else we do will matter much! 

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    Skipping breakfast is not a good idea

    March 25, 2008 at 9:05 pm · Filed under Culture, Family, News, Youth, health ·Tagged , , , ,

    Did you have your breakfast today? About 25% of teens in US skips breakfast. Kids in your home or kids under your care in church or school, may be picking up some bad eating habits - not eating breakfast!

    A study of teen health, lifestyles and eating habits done by University of Minneapolis is out. Teenagers who regularly eat breakfast tend to weigh less, exercise more and eat a more healthful diet than their breakfast-skipping peers. Eating breakfasts is a healthy habit. Leaving tummy empty for prolonged duration is harmful. Nothing very surprising, I guess!

    Breakast is the most important meals of the day. Filling up bellies in the morning may control their appetite better throughout the day. It might also prevent food binges at lunch or dinner. It might also cut down junk food consumption. Staying up late or morning rush often leaves us with little time for breakfast. Whether it be school or college or work, we find ourselves rushing out of the door without morning meal.

    If you tend skip breakfast, it is time to fix that lifestyle. Get into a habit of regularly eating your breakfast, even if it is something small or on the run. Something is better than nothing. Family that eats together stays healhy. Such teens have less eating disorders!

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    Quarter of US teen girls have STD

    March 12, 2008 at 2:36 pm · Filed under Culture, Family, News, Resources, Youth, health ·Tagged , , ,

    A shocking health report came out on US teenage girls from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). More than one fourth of them have some form of sexually transmitted disease! An estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls between the ages 14 and 19 (about 26 percent of that age group) have a sexually transmitted infection such as the human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis. See news report on Reuters, New York Times and US News.

    This is indicative of growing promiscuity among teens in the US. When teen pregnancy and abortion were on the decline, many thought teens are remaining sexually abstinent. But this report now proves that teens are more careful not to get pregnant, but their sexual behaviors have not changed much.

    48 percent of black teen-age girls were infected, compared to 20 percent of whites and 20 percent of Mexican American girls. It did not say anything about Asian Americans. Among the infected, about 15 percent had more than one. See CDC website for more on teen sexual behavior stats. Very alarming numbers, indeed!

    Future fallout of such behavioral trend is for anybody to guess. Not just the risk of these quarter of girls catching diseases like HIV or cervical cancer, but how it will affect over 3 million future marriages they will enter into and its impact on future generations, society and nations!

    There is something clearly wrong with current sex education approaches and curriculums. Some have making this as the reason for vaccinating all girls … remember the Merck’s vaccine? Was this research funded by pharma companies? Are there any ulterior business motives behind these numbers? Of course, CDC recommends all teen girls to be vaccinated. In others words, they are bought in to the idea that all teens are going to be sexually active!

    There is a price to pay for the choices we make. There ain’t any free lunches! Every idea had its consequences. Some more costly than the other, but no liberal and immoral choices was without a hidden cost. Traditional, conservative and moral ideas may seems like limiting our freedom, but it will surely preserve and sustain a social order and provide safe environment for future generations. 

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