Young girls more likely to smoke!

YOUNG girls in Warrington, aged 11 to 15, are more likely to start smoking according to new national figures just released.
A report from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care showed the North West as having one of the highest rates of smoking amongst 11-15 year-old girls across the country with 11 per cent regularly smoking.
And a national “General Lifestyle Survey” showed that smoking rates among young women aged 16 to 19 have increased across the country, with young women far more likely to smoke than young men.
Smoking remains the single biggest preventable cause of early death, killing more people than alcohol, drugs, obesity, illegal drugs and road accidents combined.
Andrea Crossfield, director of smokefree north west, said: “It is now urgent that we work together across the public and voluntary sectors, with families and with communities, to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking to protect the health of future generations.”
“We need to ‘turn off the tap’ of young people starting to smoke. There are almost 84,000 young smokers in the North West and 80 per cent of smokers start before they are 19-years-old.
“This is tragic for the next generation and we must all pull together to do whatever it takes to stop smoking being a childhood addiction.”