SE launches no smoking campaign
by Brian Shults, se news editor

    An educational campaign on SE Campus last week illustrated the effects of smoking.

   Featured at the campaign were such visual aids as cancerous pig lungs beside healthy pig lungs, a jar full of tar, estimated to be the amount one smoker receives from smoking one pack a day for one year, videos and speakers including James Carter from Ground Zero, a clinic devoted to catching children and young adults early to help them quit smoking or never start.

   “In the Metroplex, over 200,000 people are dying every year from smoking-related illnesses. That averages to 600 people a day,” Carter said.

   Carter blamed the tobacco industry for the problem.

   “Young adults smoking in the area have gone up in past years because tobacco companies have intentionally targeted kids. The tobacco companies purposely raised the amount of nicotine so they would be more addictive,” he said.

   The age of a smoker also has impact, Carter said.

   “Health problems for young adults are becoming worse because they are starting earlier and are smoking a more potent cigarette,” he said.

   The number of adults between 25 and 35 contracting lung cancer has risen in recent years because of these conditions, Carter said.

   “Tobacco companies know that if you do not smoke before you are 18, chances are you will not start, so they target a younger audience,” he said to students, using a foot pump to inflate the cancerous pig lung with air.

   “The tumor’s here,” he said pointing to the lung. “Allow air to escape similar to what smoking does to human lungs.”

   Carter explained the effects smoking has on a human.

   “I know a man who is 60 years old. He can’t walk 60 feet without stopping to regain his breath because of emphysema.” he said.

   “If I can get someone’s attention on one thing like the inability to breathe or the lung tumors, maybe they will see it affects other things,” he said.

   There are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes, ranging from gasoline additive nitrobenzene to gas chamber poison hydrogen cyanide, Carter said.

   Also featured at another table during the campaign against smoking was Samantha Powell, SE instructor of dietetics.

   “Typically, when people stop smoking, they worry about gaining weight,” she said.

   “Nutrition goes right along with that to maintain a healthy diet and a healthy heart,” she said.

   When people quit smoking, they commonly gain weight because they decide to eat more to alleviate the cravings of nicotine, Powell said.

   Education regarding the amounts of fat and sugar we consume in the fast foods many enjoy is an important method of preventing the weight gain after an individual quits smoking, the dietetics instructor said.

   Accompanying Powell’s exhibit were test tubes full of the various amounts of fat in ordinary foods.

   The exhibit also showed a body fat machine and a synthetic glob of how five pounds of body fat looks apart from the body.

   More than a hundred students visited the smoking education exhibit between classes for the few hours it was open.

   Veronica Warrior, SE coordinator of health services, coordinated the event.