Why Smoking Rates Have Doubled Among Teenage Girls In India

An alarming pattern among Indian teenage females is that smoking rates have increased by double over the last decade. The survey by Indian Tobacco Control, which is part of the Union Health Ministry, revealed some concerning trends among Indian females, including increased smoking rates.

The data demonstrate a considerable increase in smoking rates among teenage girls, even though total tobacco usage in the country is down. While experts proposed multiple potential causes for the alarming boost in adolescent smoking intake, data statistics show the severity of the situation

Smoking Rates Double Among Teenage Girls in India

While tobacco consumption rates in the country have been declining for the past decade, with smoking rates in adults also falling slightly, the Indian Tobacco Control has released its latest report, which shows a two-fold increase in smoking consumption among teenage girls in the country over the last decade.

According to reports, adolescent girls saw a 3.8 percentage point increase from 2009 to 2019. This corresponds to a startling 100% increase, bringing the smoking rate among young girls to an alarming 6.2%. While adult women's smoking rates had decreased.

Teenage girls have surpassed young boys in smoking rates, while the increase among boys was only 2.3 percentage points. The results come at a time when smoking rates in adults have declined by 2.2 percent and in women by 0.4%.

Why is smoking increasing In Teenage Girls In India?

As experts struggle to understand the reasons for this gender-specific spike, Prof. Monica Arora, a public health scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), who also edited this paper, suggests the following reasons for the increase in smoking rates:

According to Prof. Arora, girls mature faster than boys, and, like boys, they smoke to relieve stress and appear cool. It is also possible that peer pressure is developing, as social groups must be influencing girls to smoke and comply.

Prof. Arora also points out the misguided perception and marketing gimmicks as she states: "Women have largely been an untapped demographic for tobacco companies. This is the reason girls have become a prominent target, with images of smoking as fashionable and a sign of women's empowerment."

Prof. Arora further highlighted how warning issues during smoking scenes in films have an impact on smoking rates, stating: "Ever since the regulation to issue warnings when scenes of smoking appear on screen was introduced in 2012, we saw a decline in smoking on screen. However, with OTT platforms, where content without warning was uploaded, there was an increase in onscreen smoking." 

Are E-Cigarettes Safe?

There is a widespread misconception, these days that e-cigarettes or vapes are a safer alternative to smoking. Clearing that concerning notion, Prof. Arora added, "There is also a worrisome trend of propagating e-cigarettes as safe when they aren’t. They are easily available on portals or in the grey market  and are sold without verifying the consumer’s age, completely in violation of the laws."

It should be noted that smoking products other than cigarettes that are marketed as a "safer" alternative, such as dab pens, vapes, "Jules," and so on, are just as harmful to health as cigarettes, because the e-liquids filled in them contain harmful chemical flavourings, nicotine, cannabis, and other harmful substances that are extremely harmful to health.

Women On Smoking Cigarettes

This report made me question how every woman  I know, especially my friends, hasn't tried smoking at least once in her life. However, there are very few men I know who smoke. This led me to think about the situation and ask my friends what could be the reason behind it.

When asked when most women first tried smoking, Riya exclusively told SheThePeople that she was 18 when she tried it for the first time, and it was because her friend wanted to try and she didn't want to leave her friend alone, so she tried it reluctantly but never enjoyed it.

While Anaya expressed how her father smoked and she decided she would never smoke in her life after seeing her father when she moved out of home for college, she accompanied her friends to smoke but never smoked herself; however, later they made her realise that "smoking is not a negative thing,  addiction is," which led her to smoke on occasion.

Two more, women who decided to remain anonymous stated that other females around them who used to smoke received more respect, but those who maintained their nonsmoking position were outlined in social circles. They explained how they later discovered women who smoked around them to be "cool," so they tried smoking on them since those women always fascinated them and it seemed like a power of some kind.

Priya stated that, despite having tried smoking as a teenager and hanging out with other smokers, she was never stimulated to smoke. However, her friends' influence on how smoking is relieving, as well as the cinematic depiction of glorifying the main character's misery and grief through smoking, tempted her in her weakest life moments to not only start smoking but to become completely dependent on smoking and finding an escape through it, leading her to become a chain smoker, constantly feeling vulnerable, and losing two years of her life to get out of chain smoking.

Several men, however, stated that they did not start smoking in their teens because they were aware not to be swayed by these pressures; nonetheless, as they grew, in job culture, it was either regarded as "rude" not to accompany them or some of their roommates got the best of them and made them become smokers as well. Many men admitted that they just started smoking because they believed it worked better after drinking alcohol.

Notably, women agreed that saying 'No' to smoking is easier for them than saying 'No' to other aspects of life as a woman. A lot of men admitted that it is incredibly difficult to maintain a position and continue to refuse to smoke or drink as men.