Respiratory Treatment and Prevention (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology)

health disturbances, leading to decreased fertil-
ity, increased insulin resistance, or thyroid insuf-
ficiency (Lingappa et al. 2015 ; Meral et al. 2015 ).
Despite intensive campaigns against cigarette
smoking, it remains a frequent type of life style
among youngsters; in a sense recently having a
boost in the form of e-cigarettes and smokeless
tobacco that actually are conducive to the persis-
tence of a smoking habit (Pin ̃eiro et al. 2015 ;
Wolfson et al. 2015 ). Our study shows that the
anti-cigarette campaigns in Poland do not stop
the youths and adolescents from smoking
cigarettes. Further, percentage of young
smokers have increased in the last 5 years by
about 10 % (Kłos and Gromadecka-Sutkiewicz
2008 ; Kowalewska 2008 ; Kowalewska and
Mazur 2008 ). Adolescents are savvy about
healthy life style. Their attitude toward healthy
behaviors is shaped by family and school
environments (Niu et al. 2015 ; Saracen 2010 ).
We also found in the present study that all smok-
ing students had smoking parents, at least one of
them. That points to the need of initiating more
anti-smoking activities and measures directed
toward parents and family environment. We
also should take into account the probable disad-
vantageous influence on the number of smokers
of e-cigarette promotion (Pin ̃eiro et al. 2015 ).
Our findings show that cigarette smoking starts
off very early; about 40 % of school students had
begun smoking before 15 years of age. The per-
centage of smokers in the first and last grade was
similar, which shows that if there are quitters
along the school years, they are substituted for
by newcomers to smoking. In line with the
literature data (Kandel et al. 2015 ; Pin ̃eiro
et al. 2015 ) we found that females smoked less
often than males did, but the percentage of
chronic bronchitis was higher among smoking
females than males. Overall, more than 70 % of
smoking students presented symptoms of, and
were medically treated for, chronic bronchitis.
This number points attention to the extent of
likely detrimental health problems developing
in later life and to the epidemiological and eco-
nomical seriousness of the issue. In addition, an
increasing cost of cigarettes seems to bear little
effect on the number of smokers, particularly in

relatively wealthy regions of the country, like the

Mazovian voivodship in Poland, having not

much of an effect on economic-driven restriction

of adolescents’ access to cigarettes. All students

of the present study had unlimited access to elec-

tronic media, both at home and school. Despite

constant information concerning harmful effects

of cigarettes, our findings failed to unravel a

reduction in tobacco usage among Polish

teenagers and adolescents. There is an apparent

necessity to develop new strategies to combat

cigarette smoking and to reduce the number of

smoking-related chronic pulmonary diseases.

5 Conclusions

This study demonstrates that despite intensive

informative activities directed at sharing knowl-

edge on the harmful effects of tobacco smoking,

the number of smoking teenagers increases and

more than 30 % of school students admit smoking

cigarettes. Smoking begins at an early time of life,

before 15 years of age, and more than 70 % of

adolescent smokers reveal symptoms of chronic

bronchitis. Males smoke cigarettes more often than

females do, but females appear more vulnerable to

lung detrimental effects of smoking. All young

smokers have at least one smoking parent. The

widespread incidence and severity of the adolescent

smoking lead to a conclusion that anti-smoking

measures should concentrate not only on

adolescents, but also, and perhaps in the first place,

on the smoking parents. Intensive anti-smoking

activities should embrace school counselors, carers,

and educators, whoever they may be.

Conflicts of Interest The author declares no conflict of

interest in relation to his article.

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