By IANS
New Delhi : An increasing number of teenagers in India is taking to tobacco and nearly one million people die every year due to tobacco-related illnesses, says a new study by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The report titled ‘The Tobacco Use and Control Efforts’ said that 9.7 percent teenaged girls in India were using some form of tobacco as against just 3.1 percent of women. Similarly, 17.3 teenaged boys had taken to smoking.
The study revealed that tobacco use in India was starting at quite a young age and in many cases at schools. The global health watchdog said that at least 14.1 percent of youngsters was consuming tobacco products like cigarettes and bidis.
It found that a total 60 percent of adults in the country was consuming tobacco, of which 57 percent were men.
“Tobacco is cultivated around the world and can be legally purchased in all countries. The dried leaf is smoked in the form of manufactured cigarettes, bidis, cigars, kreteks, pipes and sticks,” WHO said in the report.
“It is also chewed throughout the world, but principally in South and Southeast Asia, often together with areca nuts and staked lime,” the report added.
WHO said there were more than one billion smokers in the world. And shockingly, use of tobacco products was increasing mainly in developing and underdeveloped countries.
“Almost half of the world’s children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. The epidemic is shifting to the developing world. More than 80 percent of the world’s smokers live in low and middle-income countries,” the report pointed out.
Tobacco is the primary cause of health problems like cancer and cardiovascular diseases. It also aggravates problems like diabetes.
Across the globe, tobacco use kills 5.4 million people every year, of which one million are Indians. This means an average of one person dies every six seconds, accounting for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide.
“Unchecked, tobacco-related deaths will increase to more than eight million a year by 2030, and 80 percent of those deaths will occur in the developing world,” the report warned.
The UN body said that at least 100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century. “If current trends continue, there will be up to one billion deaths in the 21st century.”