Beijing, July 29: The number of young Chinese picking up smoking habit has more than doubled from previous years, despite health education convincing them not to smoke, a Chinese newspaper reported Wednesday.
A survey conducted among 40,000 students in Beijing showed 17 percent of students at the primary and secondary level smoked cigarettes last year, up from 7 percent from 2005.
The survey found 68 percent of teenage smokers are boys, and 77 percent are light smokers who consume less than five cigarettes per day, China Daily reported, citing the survey results from Beijing’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Among the respondents, 23 percent of boys and 11 percent of girls tried smoking in 2008, compared with 11 percent of boys and three percent of girls in 2005.
Health officials and experts said public media should shoulder some of the responsibility by not presenting material that would entice youngsters to smoke.
“Influenced by television, magazine and other public media, and environmental factors, more and more teenagers are picking up cigarettes,” Zhao Tao, chief of the disease control section of the Beijing municipal health bureau, was quoted as saying.
The survey also found 51 percent of vocational high school students tried to smoke last year, 11 percent higher than in 2005.
China is the largest producer of cigarettes in the world, with more than 300 million people having smoking habit – the world’s largest smoking population.
–Agencies