Fewer women give up smoking

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32531, 15 February 1971, Page 7

Fewer women give up smoking

(Published by arrangement from the “New York Times”)

“You’ve come a long way, baby—towaid a shorter life.” That’s the comment of many health experts on the millions of American women who have succumbed to the enticements of cigarette

I advertising. When it comes to giving up smoking, women are in fact the weaker sex. They are as likely as men to swear off cigarettes, but new Public I Health Service data show 'that women are far less ; likely to stay off them. Last week the SurgeonGeneral. Dr Jesse Steinfeld, expressed his fear that the recent barrage of femaleoriented cigarette advertising (the tobacco people know a good market when they see one) —and especially the sudden spurt in advertisements in national women’s magazines that appears to be following the ban on television advertising—will make it increasingly difficult for women to quit cigarettes and stay off them. In addressing a meeting of the National Interagency Council on Smoking and [Health in Washington, Dr I Steinfeld called for a major campaign to convince women that smoking is bad for their health, and possibly for the [health of their unborn childiren. One theory as to why

r women are less successful at t [giving up smoking than men , holds that women may think ' themselves immune to the 1 hazards of smoking; the s initial and most publicised , health warnings concerned , the vastly increased death ' rates among the smoking 5 males.

Since females tended to smoke in fewer numbers and since women smokers individually consume fewer cigarettes than men, inhale less and smoke less of each cigarette, the apparent effects of smoking on female death rates have not been as great. Also, women did not start smoking in great numbers until after World War 11. Smoking - related diseases usually take 20 or more years to show up, one expert pointed out last week, so many women who think they are safe may soon be in for an unpleasant surprise. Another factor women should take into account, says Dr Steinfeld, is the potential result of smoking during pregnancy. Several large studies have shown that women smokers tend to have smaller babies than non-smokers. A major British study also found that the babies of smokers are more likely to die in the prenatal and postnatal period, although one American study found no such effect. i A new finding that has

emerged from the continuing British study is that the children of women smoked during- pregnancy tend to read less well and to be less well adjusted socially at seven than the children of non-smoking mothers.

Researchers are perplexed as to why women become so addicted to cigarettes. One possible reason, suggested Dr Lbuis P. Bozzetti, a San Diego psychiatrist who works with a communitywide anti-smoking programme, is that women smoke more to relieve tension and release anger than men, many of whom tend to smoke for pleasure.

Another deterrent for women is the tendency to gain weight after they stop smoking. One participant at a recent smoking conference remarked that, despite careful dieting, the price she had to pay for breaking her two-pack-a-day habit was 20 extra pounds—and the price of a new wardrobe. The small decline in female smoking in the last few years (there are now 300,000 fewer smoking women than in 1966, despite a population increase of 3 million adult women in the United States) has occurred mostly among younger women. whereas there are now more smokers in the group 55 years of age and up.