Smoking habits in female
Women smokers
The trend in India is changing too fast as far as smoking is concerned and the most surprising fact is that the percentage of women smoker is on the rise compared to that of men whose percentage is going down. The consumption of cigarette is six in the mail smokers where as this is seven among the women. While twenty-four percent male in India smoke cigarettes female percentage is low but they smoke more cigarettes per head. In fact, almost thirty million female in India are regular smokers.
The age factor
Most female smokers begin smoking at an early age. Most men start smoking at an average age of nineteen where as women go for smoking at the age of almost seventeen. Almost forty-eight percent population of over fifteen in our country use some or the other tobacco products and almost two hundred million out of these people use smokeless tobacco. This is mere data but when we see the overall results, the picture is too gloomy. Let’s look at this way to get a more clear picture- One out of every five women uses smokeless tobacco where as one out of ten smokes cigarette.
The trend in women is going up for smoking where as that among men is of quitting. The number of male smokers has come down from fifty-two to forty eight in last couple of years while the women are taking up smoking and their number almost doubled in the same time. This is increasing at an alarming rate for a country like India.
Metros have more women smokers
There is sudden spurt in Women smokers in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore. One of the major reasons is of women going out, and taking up jobs. NMotably, BPO culture has brought this bad habit in women too fast. The change in working hours and staying with male coworkers for longer hours has also made a few changes. As female smokers themselves admitted most of them started smoking when they joined job although some of them smoked even while in hostels. However, female workesr in BPO industry had taken up smoking within a few months of joining and most of them were in US shift.
Women do not find any thing wrong with smoking
Most female smokers do not find any thing wrong with smoking where as men smokers want to get rid of this bad habit. Females in big cities find smoking cigarettes normal and pleasant but they do not feel the same when they have to travel to smaller cities because society does not take it normal there. In bigger cities, no one looks at them differently and they can live their own life the way they like. Even their parents are not against their habit.
Most women smokers do not seem to care for adverse remarks any more as they find their habit too big a pleasure to give it up for small things like adverse remarks. At the most they smoke in places where there is no one to look at them. I talked to a number of female smokers some of whom were big talkers. One of them asked me straight away, as to what was wrong if a woman smoked. She thought there were so many male smokers but no one seems to care. Then why females with smoking habits considered bad. I had no answer for that and was still more embarrassed when she asked me to answer her why the women with smoking habit are considered bad. After all they were not going to sleep with any one just because they were smoking. She had a point and I had no answer to her query. I think cigarette smoking is totally a personal choice although this is one of the worst habits one can have with health point of view as well as money
This is not in India only
The habit of smoking in females is going up all over the world. Most probably, this is connected with the ego of female more than any thing else. They want to show their equality this way. This habit is spreading more in developing countries especially among those over sixteen yesrs. Such countries have almost fifty percent population of the entire world with more than forty-seven percent smokers and tobacco users.
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