Young Children Recognize Cigarette Brands

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, examined the reach of tobacco and cigarette marketing among some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, sampling five and six year-old children from Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia.  These countries were selected because they have the highest number of adult smokers among low- and middle-income countries.
“Previous studies show that children and adolescents who are highly exposed to pro-smoking messages are more likely to smoke,” said Dr. Dina Borzekowski, lead author of the Pediatrics study and research professor in the UMD SPH Department of Behavioral and Community Health. “It should be of great concern that the majority of very young children in our study were familiar with at least one cigarette brand.  Even in households without smokers, children could identify tobacco logos.”
The United States created stronger regulations for tobacco advertising in the 1990s after similar research found that six year olds were as familiar with Camel tobacco’s “Joe Camel” mascot as with the Disney Channel’s Mickey Mouse.
“Regulations created by the World Health Organization to restrict tobacco advertising exist outside of the United States, but beyond our country’s borders these regulations may not be as effective,” Borzekowski explains, referring to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. “Multi-national tobacco companies appear to have moved their promotional efforts from high-income, industrialized countries to low- and middle-income countries where there are often weak tobacco control policies and poor enforcement.” While smoking is stabilizing or decreasing in wealthy countries, people in low and middle-income countries are taking up the habit at alarming rates. In China, for example, nearly one third of adults are cigarette smokers ( about 53 percent of men) , according to WHO data.
With five and six year-old children aware of domestic and international tobacco brands, there is a need to enforce stronger regulations in countries where tobacco companies have increased efforts to attract new users. When children are aware of logos, they are more likely to like and want those products. This is concerning when the products – such as tobacco – should not be used by children. Borzekowski and colleagues suggest changes including requiring larger graphic warning labels on cigarette packages. Additionally, they urge changes to limit children’s exposure to the point of sale of tobacco products, including establishing minimum distances between these retailers and places frequented by young children.
“This study reiterates that more needs to be done to reduce the ability of tobacco companies to market their products to children,” said co-author Dr. Joanna Cohen, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Global Tobacco Control. “Countries can implement and enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, including putting large picture warnings on the front and back of cigarette packs. Plain and standardized packaging, now required in Australia, also helps to reduce the attractiveness of cigarette packs among young children.”

Under Obamacare, large companies will punish employees who don’t quit smoking, lose weight

Employers tried the carrot, then a small stick. Now they are turning to bigger cudgels.
For years they encouraged workers to improve their health and productivity with free screenings, discounted gym memberships and gift cards to lose weight. More recently, a small number charged smokers slightly higher premiums to get them to quit.
Results for these plans were lackluster, and healthcare costs continued to soar. So companies are taking advantage of new rules under President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul in 2014 to punish smokers and overweight workers.
Some will even force employees to meet weight goals, quit smoking and provide very personal information or pay up to thousands more annually for healthcare. That could disproportionately affect the poor, who are more likely to smoke and can’t afford the higher fees.
Nearly 40 percent of large U.S. companies will use surcharges in 2014, such as higher insurance premiums or deductibles for individuals who do not complete company-set health goals, according to a survey of 892 employers released in September by human resources consultancy Towers Watson and National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers.
That is almost twice as many as the last time they did the survey in 2011, when only 19 percent of companies had such penalties. The number is expected to climb to two-thirds of employers by 2015.
Employers are getting much more aggressive about punishing workers who are overweight or have high cholesterol. A study released on Wednesday by the Obesity Action Coalition, an advocacy group, covered workers at more than 5,000 companies who must participate in their employer wellness programs to receive full health benefits. Sixty-seven percent also had to meet a weight-related health goal such as a certain body mass index.
Almost 60 percent of these workers received no coverage that paid for fitness training, dietitian counseling, obesity drugs or bariatric surgery to help achieve a body mass index under 25, which is considered healthy.
“Weight requirements are an effective way to make it harder for people with obesity to qualify for full health coverage,” said Ted Kyle, the study’s lead author and founder of Conscienhealth, a Pittsburgh-based company that advises other companies on obesity programs.
“Some programs can verge on discrimination,” he said.

Smoke-Free Homes Discouraged Smoking Overall

Adopt a smoke-free home.”
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, and John P. Pierce, PhD, from the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, led this investigation into ways to reduce smoking in the US.
According to these researchers, laws that have made smoking illegal indoors have been one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking in the US.
For this study, the researchers looked at data from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS), which is a monthly survey conducted by the US Census Bureau on people 15 and older not living in jail or a mental institution.
From 2006 to 2007, and over three separate surveys, 150,967 people aged 18 and older responded to the survey.
The researchers found that persons living below the federal poverty line were 38 percent more likely to have smoked more than 100 cigarettes over the course of their lifetimes than individuals living in moderate- to high-income households.
Persons living below the federal poverty line were 21 percent less likely to have quit smoking and twice as likely to be current smokers than individuals in moderate- to high-income households.
Smokers living in a home where smoking was not allowed smoked 35 percent fewer cigarettes per day than smokers living in a home where smoking was permitted.
Individuals living in a smoke-free home were more successful at quitting smoking compared with persons trying to quit in homes where smoking was permitted (7.9 percent versus 1.5 percent, respectively).
The authors of this study concluded that adopting a smoke-free home helped people either smoke fewer cigarettes per day or quit smoking altogether.
“We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful,” Dr. Pierce said in a press statement.
This study was published in October in the American Journal of Public Health.
The UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program provided funding for this project. No conflicts of interest were declared.

Outdoor smoking restrictions in Toronto parks approved by committee

Toronto’s parks and environment committee unanimously endorsed a plan to restrict outdoor smoking in city parks.

The report, which had already been endorsed by Toronto’s Board of Health, is part of a comprehensive plan to restrict smoking in outdoor locations in the same way legislation currently restricts smoking in bars and restaurants.

The more controversial elements of the policy are going forward either slowly or through requests to other levels of government.

The proposed smoking ban in city parks – which would prevent smokers from lighting up within nine metres of an amenity – went through the parks committee easily.

“I don’t want to kiss an ashtray and I don’t want to play in one either,” said committee chair Giorgio Mammoliti, who supported the matter.

In the past, Mammoliti has been more skeptical about smoking bans. In the 1990s prior to amalgamation, Mammoliti led the charge to overturn a smoking ban in bars and restaurants in the former municipality of North York.

But at the committee, he said the argument for going slow on anti-smoking measures is out of date.

“There was a time when some of us who’ve been around a long time recognized there was an argument economically,” said Mammoliti. “But that was when the other municipalities weren’t banning smoking and Toronto wanted to set an example.”

Deputations to the committee all agreed smoking in parks was bad for the health of parks users and also, at sports fields, set a bad example for young people.

“Smoking on the sidelines does not mix with a quality sports experience,” said Jeff Carmichael of the Toronto Sports Council.

He said his organization supported the ban, noting most sporting events ban smoking in city parks already. A ban, he said, would make the behaviour easier to enforce.

Beaches-East York Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon called the decision “a no-brainer health-wise.”

The ban would also make it unlawful to smoke at public beaches, as well as within nine metres of sporting field, shelters and picnic areas.

The matter will go to Toronto Council in November.

Sick of attacks on smokers

PEOPLE asked whether they favour any move to protect children from danger will surely agree, naturally assuming the problem to exist. Your report (News, September 29) of 75 per cent public support for a smoking ban in children’s play areas is a typical example of such manipulation employed by Ash Scotland, who commissioned the poll.
Predictably, they offer no evidence. From personal ­observation of a number of playgrounds near me, I’d say that’s because none exists, but I invite Ash to prove me wrong.
The stipulation of a ban “in” play areas suggests enclosure, but this is not always the case, apart from which there would be nothing to stop smokers standing outside any fence.
I consider paying a great deal of money to draw in air and blow out smoke ridiculous behaviour, but it’s legal – and it gives many people pleasure – and I for one am sick and tired of groups like Ash campaigning for ever more restriction on freedom of choice.