Jaipur: Children start chewing tobacco earlier than smoking.
Global Youth Tobacco Survey (Gyts), released in the state of Monday, shows that the average age of smokeless tobacco initiation among 13 135-year-old children is 7.6 years and for cigarettes it is 13.4 years.
GYTS is a cross-sectional, national survey that is representative against students in classes related to the age of 13-15 years using a core questionnaire, sample design, and data collection protocols.
In addition, 9.3% of children exposed to used smoking in the state.
This was done by the Ministry of Health and the Welfare of the Family who set the International Institute for Population Sciences as a Nodal Agency to do so under the guidance of the Technical Advisory Committee with the support needed from the World Health Organization.
In Rajasthan, this survey includes 3,267 students from 34 schools, including 20 public and 14 private.
The survey showed that students were 3.9% smoking, while 3.7% of children used smokeless tobacco.
The survey showed that 89% of smokers today want to stop smoking now.
More than 95% of children who want to stop smoking tobacco are to improve health while those who want to stop tobaccolessly not because they want to improve health but because their families don’t like them to eat smokeless tobacco.
The percentage of those who want to stop tobaccolessly much less than those who want to stop smoking.
Only 2.4% of the smokeless tobacco users today want to stop now against 89% of children want to stop smoking now.
According to the survey, 23.9% of boys have heard about Quitline tobacco and only 0.4% are called Quitline tobacco.
Children want to stop but they don’t gather courage to call Quitline tobacco.
Rajasthan: ‘Before smoking, children start chewing tobacco’
