Hey girls! Are you ready to be leaders in your school, committed to telling your girlfriends that smoking stinks? We've gathered some new facts and statistics about girls and smoking that you can use to share the oriGENal voice message. For you athletes, check out this report about the benefits for girls and sports from the CDC Tobacco Information and Prevention Source.

We are GENaustin girls telling our friends, girls in the Austin community, their families, and their support network of teachers and other community leaders about the dangers of Big Tobacco. For years, the Tobacco Industry has invested billions of dollars to persuade young women to use their deadly products.

We are strong girls. We have a powerful voice. We are the future and deserve to live long, prosperous and healthy lives. There is nothing cool about death and disease. Why contribute to an industry that makes billions of dollars from selling their deadly products to young girls?

Every year, tobacco-related disease kills more than 178,000 women, making it the largest preventable cause of death among women in the U.S. Furthermore, smoking has been responsible for the premature deaths of approximately 3 million women since 1985, and women who die of a smoking-related disease lose, on average, 14.5 years of potential life.

We will not become a future tobacco statistic

...we are oriGENal!

I have an oriGENal voice!
I will speak out against Big Tobacco in my community!
There are other girls like me who pledge to be tobacco-free!

Girls from the oriGENal voice program went to speak with City Council members on Friday, March 25, to have April 2, 2005 proclaimed "oriGENal voice Day." Funded by the Texas Cancer Council, oriGENal voice is a unique group within the GENaustin network. Founded in 2003, it is comprised of girls in Austin who have pledged to stay tobacco-free. In addition, these girls are trained in creating different forms of media to raise awareness about the risks of smoking among their friends and family. They are strong girls who have a powerful voice and feel that it is their duty to educate others about an industry that makes billions of dollars from selling their products to girls just like them.

Read more about this event on an article from: The Daily Texan

• Girls and young women get addicted to cigarettes more quickly and for different reasons than boys. (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, The Formative Years: Pathways to Substance Abuse among Girls and Young Women Ages 8-22)
• Tobacco-related disease has reached epidemic proportions among women in the U.S. as a result of tobacco industry marketing directly to women over the past several decades. Chek out this terrific report on tobacco industry targeting of women and girls from Tobaccofreekids.org.(PDF)
• In Texas, 494,000 girls under age 18 are likely to become daily smokers - 158,000 girls under 18 are likely to die prematurely as a result. (Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids - PDF)
• Every day, more than 4,000 kids under 18 try smoking for the first time, and another 2,000 kids who have already experimented with cigarettes become regular new smokers. (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• At a cost of $3.28 (+ tax) per pack, the average smoker smoking a pack-a-day will spend more than $1,100 a year to support their habit.
• Adult male and female smokers lose an average of 13 and 15 years of life respectively.
• Nearly 90% of adult smokers began at or before age 18.
• 1 out of every 3 teens who tries smoking becomes a daily smoker before leaving high school.
• A 1994 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented a rapid and unprecedented increase in the smoking initiation rate of adolescent girls following the launch of women’s cigarette brands like Virginia Slims in the late 1960s.
• Teenage girls often start to smoke to avoid weight gain. They also seek to identify themselves as independent and glamorous, which reflect images projected by tobacco ads (American Lung Association).
• Social images can convince teens that being slightly overweight is worse than smoking. Cigarette advertising portrays cigarettes as causing slimness and implies that cigarette smoking suppresses appetite.
• Since the 1920's, the tobacco industry has targeted women with images ranging from liberation, glamour, slimness, and feminism.

Know what the advertisers DON'T tell you! Check out this fact sheet from the CDC Tobacco Information and Prevention Source

Marketing to Women and Girls: Fact Sheet.

• More than 30% of surveyed high school girls in Texas smoke. (1998 Texas Youth Tobacco Survey; Report 1: Current Tobacco Use; Bureau of Disease and Injury Prevention, Texas Department of Health)
• Almost 40% of Texas high school girls said they would try smoking in the next year. (1998 Texas Youth Tobacco Surevey; Report 1: Current Tobacco Use; Bureau of Disease and Injury Prevention, Texas Department of Health)
• There are almost 60,000 new youth smokers each year in Texas. (Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids: Key State-Specific Tobacco Related Data and Rankings)
• Every year, 53 percent of 8th grade girls and 28 percent of 7th graders try smoking.
• In Texas alone, there are 486,000 kids under the age of 18 who will die prematurely of tobacco-related illness.

Research has shown that students who participate in interscholastic sports are less likely to be regular and heavy smokers. Students who play at least one sport are 40% less likely to be regular smokers and 50% less likely to be heavy smokers. Regular and heavy smoking decreases substantially with an increase in the number of sports played. (Escobedo LG, Marcus SE, Holtzman D, Giovino GA. Sports participation, age at smoking initiation, and the risk of smoking among US high school students. JAMA, March 17, 1993; 269:1391-1395.)

The lower rates of smoking for student athletes may be related to a number of factors: (Escobedo, 1993)

• Greater self-confidence gained from sports participation.
• Additional counseling from coaching staff about smoking.
• Reduced peer influences about smoking.
• Perceptions about reduced sports performance because of smoking.
• Greater awareness about the health consequences of smoking.

Special Benefits for Girls and sports ...

Smoking becomes a way for preteen and teen women to build a sense of self and stay connected with peers in the face of enormous pressures to be beautiful, successful, sophisticated, thin, independent, and popular -- seductive images that are reinforced in movies, music videos, and advertising. (Edwards P. Evening the odds: Adolescent women, tobacco and physical activity. Ottawa: Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity, 1995.)

Sports and physical activity are positive, viable alternatives to smoking in the lives of young women. They can give adolescent women the very benefits they perceive in smoking: independence, status with their peers, a chance to make friends, relaxation, weight management, and a more positive sense of self. (Edwards P, 1995)

• Girls who play sports have higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression than girls who do not play sports. (Edwards P, 1995)
• Girls who play sports have a more positive body image and experience higher states of psychological well being than girls and women who do not play sports. (Edwards P, 1995)
• Girls who play sports learn about teamwork, goal-setting, the experience of success, the pursuit of excellence in performance, how to deal with failures, and other positive behaviors -- all of which are important skills for the workplace and life. (Edwards P, 1995)

See out what other Texans are doing to stop tobacco-use in their communities:

• Worth It
• Duck Texas
• OTPC (Office of Tobacco Prevention and Control)
• Tobacco Free Amarillo
• STEP (Texas Statewide Tobacco Education & Prevention)
• STOPN (Spit Tobacco Prevention Network)
• TCADA (Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse)

Check out these National Anti-Tobacco Programs:

• Tobacco-Free Kids
• Big Tobacco Sucks! (Campaign Against Transnational Tobacco)
• American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout
• American Legacy Foundation
• American Cancer Society - Click here to see what's happening in your community.
• American Heart Association - Click here to see what's happening at your local AHA chapter.
• American Lung Association
• Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation

See what some oriGENal girls have put together:

• Caren's Site
• Becky's Site

  The Texas Cancer Council
The Texas Cancer Council is the state agency dedicated to reducing the human and economic impact of cancer on Texans through the promotion and support of collaborative, innovative, and effective programs and policies for cancer prevention and control.

  American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society is fighting tobacco by empowering youth, giving smokers the tools to quit, and communities the resources to ensure clean indoor air.

Community Support Provided by:
Dobie Middle School
Michael Ham, After School Program Director
414-3270

For more information on oriGENal voice please call 414-0476

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