The World No Tobacco Day, that is celebrated on May 31, was a theme initiated in 2010 with an intention to draw a relation between gender and tobacco, with an emphasis on marketing cigarettes to women. This theme was chosen "to draw particular attention to the harmful effects of tobacco marketing towards women and girls".
And this continues to be observed year-on-year. The most common time when women initiate smoking is in their teens, and the number of adolescents who initiate smoking increases every year from grades nine through 12. Moreover, there is growing evidence that the reasons girls initiate smoking is different from the reasons why boys begin. Many of the factors that contribute to smoking initiation have been elucidated; the strongest appear to be peer smoking and parent smoking.
Parent connectedness also plays a vital role. Adolescents desire greater connectedness to parents, school, and community. Unfortunately, today's busy adults frequently relinquish responsibility and supervision of teens allowing them greater opportunities to participate in unhealthy behaviours. When the adolescent is unable to meet her need for affirmation within the family, in this case, the daughter with the mother, the affiliation with the peer group may be greater. Adolescents like to experiment as they become aware of new things at that age. It is at this age that the family has to create a bond of trust and respect to understand their psychology, as they go through hormonal changes that have an effect on the mind an body.
When the first Surgeon General’s Report on smoking was released in 1964,
it caused a rapid drop in smoking among men. Yet smoking rates among
women continued to go up in the years immediately following the report
as tobacco companies aggressively marketed to women. Documents from
the tobacco industry show that cigarette companies created a line of
slimmer cigarettes packaged in pastel colors to appeal to women, and
implied that smoking could keep girls and women thin. They also used
slogans, advertising, and sports sponsorships to tie their products to the
women’s rights movement throughout the 1960s and 1970s.