http://www.whudafxup.com/?ref=http://www.protectthetruth.org/truthcampaign.htm

In class on Monday we watched a video produced by the CDC that showed how health communication has changed throughout the last 50 years. It was very interesting to see the different health related issues from past years that are still relevant today. After I went home I started thinking about one issue in particular...smoking. It is amazing to me that not only do people continue to smoke but that more people begin smoking everyday. With the amount of knowledge we have about the health effects for the smoker and those around the smoker how can this continue to be a problem?

Then it occurred to me that smoking can still be viewed as "cool", "sexy" or "glamorous". Above I posted a link to a commercial from "the truth" anti-smoking campaign. According to their website www.protectthetruth.com, 21 million U.S. youth aged 12-17 can describe at least one "truth" ad and 25 million or 90% from this age group said the ad they saw was convincing. So if these ads are working why does it seem like there are so many smokers in the world? Are non-smokers like myself just more sensitive to smokers around them? It seems like hardly a day goes by that I don't get smoked on by someone! I guess the question is how do we get people to view smoking in the way it is portrayed on the truth ads and not as it is sometimes seen in the entertainment industry? As we talked about in class entertainment is one of the biggest ways that health is communicated. Until smoking is no longer associated with being cool or sexy we may be fighting an uphill battle.