| Tobacco
training session held
Heidi Henson, CHES and the Health Promotion Coordinator for Public Health Idaho North Central District came to  Prairie
High School for their wellness day on October 28th as part of Red Ribbon
Week. After the event, there was quite a bit of interest from the students
about how to get the message out about tobacco use to the younger students.
On November 6th eleven Prairie High School students and eight Prairie Middle
School students met with Heidi to get trained in the TATU program (Teens
Against Tobacco Use). This program is sponsored by the American Lung Association
of Idaho. In their six hour training they learned about tobacco products,
how they are made, what is in a cigarette, how the media promotes tobacco
use and they did a historical timeline of tobacco and the laws that have
been put into place to help the smokers and non-smokers. The afternoon
was spent making lesson plans for the “new teachers”. This included billboards,
games, activities and information they will present to the 3-8 graders
in March. They also produced a skit to show the younger students.
Here are some interesting facts they learned:
One can of smokeless tobacco contains as much nicotine as 60 cigarettes. In the state of Idaho 4.9% of 10th graders use chew and 7.6% of 12th graders use chew. They also learned everyone is not smoking. In fact 84.2% of adults in Idaho DO NOT smoke and 82.1% of high school students DO NOT smoke. The fastest growing sector of smokers is women under the age of 23. More than half of all smokers begin smoking before the age of 14 The average age youth first try tobacco in Idaho is 12 1600 people In Idaho die each year fro tobacco related illnesses Every cigarette takes 7 minutes off your life There are over 600 ingredients in tobacco that when burned create over 4000 chemicals in an average cigarette. Two hundred of these chemicals are considered to be poisons and 60 are known to be cancer causing. Smoking kills more people in the USA than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. The students are excited to be part of this program and are wanting to share their commitment and skills as a tobacco free teen with younger children so they will make the healthy choice to stay tobacco free. 
One of the bulletin boards the students made |
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