Fewer young people start smoking 02/07/2007 00:00

2 July 2007

RIJSWIJK - About 42 percent of the youth aged 10 to 19 says they have tried smoking at one point or another. That is 8 percent less than in 1997, according to a TNS NIPO survey commissioned by anti-smoking organisation Stivoro.

Both boys and girls have started smoking less. Ten years ago 43 percent of the 15 and 16 year olds smoked, compared to 31 percent now. The percentage of 15 and 19 year olds who have never smoked rose from 33 percent in 1997 to 38 percent now.

Stivoro hopes that a smoking ban in bars, cafes, restaurants and nightclubs will result in fewer young people smoking.  "We have to take this moment to get a picture of how widespread smoking is among the youth," says director Lies van Gennip. She says preventing young people from smoking is important because some 90 percent of addicted smokers started around the age of 15.

Van Gennip thinks it is worrying that students in secondary vocational education smoke almost twice as much as students in university prep programmes. "The pattern of divergences in smoking behaviour between the rich and the poor  is set at an early age." Stivoro says that smoking is the norm in the lower social classes and is therefore an important cause behind differences in health between social groups.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news