Perceptions of health risk and smoking habit in young people

Young people be excessively much holdming to start mocking If their friends or family are smokers. The present engage Is a quantitative research with new-made self-aggrandizing smokers (at the xx Learning Centre) base on decoct comp each discussions where a range of take in-related topics were covered. 2. Sample The model in this study accommodated 6 males and 4 females, aged betwixt 13 and 17 years, 7 smokers and 2 non-smokers. Of this group of adolescents lone(prenominal) 2 parents are non-smokers.My aim was to maximize variation in our sample to include young men and women, smokers and non-smokers, and several(predicate) age categories. My discourse analytic post here concentrates on talk between speakers and eitherows me to highlight how meanings nigh fume and wellness are worked up. Debated and disputed in the group. Informed consent was obtained from separately participant prior to the Focus group interview (Appendix A and B). The concentre group took pla ce in the Unanimous Learning Centre.For anonymity reasons the extend ear of the participants suck been changed. 3. Procedure In this study we utilise ii centralize groups of five participants each. Focus groups mimic natural peer groups, so that the data willing deally be authentic, rich and Informative. Focus groups have long been apply In sociable science research, Including psychology (Crossly, 2000 Wilkinson, 2003), and can be peculiarly useful in identifying both diverse individual accounts and prevailing mixer factors which influence and constrain actions.In the context of young people and take in, focus group research allows us to gain access to the multiplicity of perspectives presented and will also illuminate how accounts are constructed and negotiated at bottom peer groups. Participants were disclosen a return of prompts about their views on fastball, such as Please tell me wherefore you believe you started roll of tobacco and Please tell me what role y ou believe sens/ non hummer plays in your life story. Participants were encouraged to discuss these views among themselves, with minimal input from the facilitator.The discussion, which lasted around forty minute for each group, was recorded and then transcribed verbatim. 4. epitome Health was generally not cited as a major fretfulness for our young people, and was not participants mootmed much more concerned with the financial consequence engendered by dope. When the topic of health pretends was brought up, thither was a general magnetic dip o downplay or discount these. Moreover, it was claimed that smoking could function efficaciously as a form of stress relief, even when the stress is engendered by exposure to smoking-related health scares, either in the media or within families.The two discursive patterns are formulated as follows Everything is bad for you at once Contesting smoking-related health risks It does make you flavor better weed as stress-relief 4. 1 . Everything is bad for you now Contesting smoking-related health risks Contesting smoking-related health risks arioso strategies were deployed which endured the health risks linked to smoking as exaggerated, a ploy which clearly works to rationalist and uphold genuine smoking a way of misusing the self from the specter of disorder and mortality.For example, other sublunary practices are cited which involve risk, and life itself is presented as saturated with risk Nicola Mimi like to call up yourself that youre not going to get cancer, I mean, theyre phraseing that cancer is ca utilise by all these different things 0 1 mean whos to say that smoking is definitely the worst one? In this excerpt there is some recognition of risk but then other organogenesis are alluded to and the dedicated link between smoking and cancer is undermined (Whoso to say? ).Thus, smoking is construed as nothing special, Just one of any number of workable causes of cancer (so many things), and theref ore not worthy of disproportionate attention. E. Generalizes the imagination of risk everything is bad for you now so that living per SE becomes set with risk, something that affects everyone. Note the extreme character reference formulations which litter this extract all these different things So, smoking is part of life and is practiced with care. Facilitator So, are health concerns an get out? Simon Well, yeah.Not really, I suppose, because some times you feel like crap because your lungs are hurting, because youve been beat up it all weekend, but you turn over, well you might give up smoking, give up drinking, give up anything and then get knocked down by a bus, but 0 if youre going to stop everything that you enjoy, well whats the block of living forever? You know what I mean? Aaron But dont you, sometimes you Just think Well, whats the point of it? Youre Just breathing in shocking smoke into your body Simon Its like whats the point of drinking? Its funThe health ri sks of smoking are conceded, with reference to current, minor symptoms. However, smoking is likened to other delicious activities (e. G. drinking) and anything/everything you enjoy so that living is defined in terms of fun over risk, the emphasis is on fun and not denying oneself gratification even if it bureau a shorter life-span or inhaling horrible smoke. give chase A kat, a guy I went to school with was cross country champion for our county, and he used to smoke like twenty a day laughs He used to smoke loads of weed and that, and he used to run for ages laughs (.You dupe someone like that, its Just like, whoa So, citing cases, where smoking has not impeded betting performance, undermines claims about the deleterious health consequences of smoking and helps Justify continued smoking. The case of the cross-country champion cited by Bob is also interesting because impressive, and encourage contesting the connection between smoking and not being healthy. Lucas I knew soul fulness who used to smoke ten a day when they were about eighty-odd and have a glass of brandy every day 0 and when they got put in a nursing home they took it all off her and within weeks she were dead.Tara Its like alcoholics, isnt it? If alcoholics halt drinking they do seem to die. In this extract, the dangers of stopping smoking are emphasizes, thereby inverting the normalizing about taking up or go along smoking. Facilitator What are the health worries you might have about smoking? Bob Cancer David None, coos I know a guy that lived until he was 23 and Just dropped dead. He didnt smoke and didnt drink. You know, the way I see it, you only live once you might as well do it, havent you.Here Bobbys speedy response concerning health fears is not taken up as the others carry on to reject this pre-occupation. David immediately invokes the case of a non-smoker who died suddenly as a means of challenging the link between smoking and ill-health. The randomness of life then becomes a key theme, which again works to rationalist current smoking. As one participant put it it Just shows that youre having a frank time, you know, drinking and having a cigarette, and it Just kind of ties in together (Kate).Here, smoking (and drinking) is inextricably tied to enjoyment, an automatic indicator of good times. 4. 2. It does make you feel better Smoking as stress-relief A very predominant theme cross all discussions was the benefits of smoking in terms of stress relief, arising from various outsets Tara It does make you feel better when youve been sat there and youve Just been in class, and you Just think Oh, Im going to go for a bag, and you go down and you have it, it does give you some kind of buzz, because it does definitely chill you out a bit, doesnt it.Rachel It gives me a couple of minutes and just chills me out, like if something that had upset me, like my family, grapple been thrown out of my house and thats the reason why I started smoking a lot more becaus e of more stress and stuff. I do think that having a cigarette makes me relax a bit. Tara At the minute of arc I dont want to stop smoking because I do see smoking as helping me chill out a bit I mean, if I didnt Id be a tiger Rachel Vie actually been told by my doc not to stop smoking he says its got anger management, it calms me down.Both participants point to the good-for-nothing consequences of not smoking I. E. Uncontaminated irritability. Earaches claim is warranted with reference to an authoritative source (a medic), which is culturally garnished with expertise. Rachel Yes, thats the reason I first started smoking again, because Id stopped smoking for so Eng and my dad gave up smoking, and my dads been smoking since he was twelve, and he stopped for six month and then he had a heart attack.You would stockpile that to make me think Right, need to stop smoking, or whatever, but bang-up away I went Mum, give us a bag, because I frankly didnt know what to do and I needed s omething to concentrate on it gives you something to think about other than whats going on around you. In summary, smoking is popularly constructed as a positive resource in times of stress, whether provoked by , arguments with friends and family, school, and paradoxically , exposure to smoking-related disease within families. 5.Conclusions smokers since, from the focus groups shows that smoking is understood as a rational choice (rather than, say, addiction) conferring benefits (stress relief, enjoyment). This determination is in line with other research on alternative rationalities (Crossly, 2000) with cock-a-hoop smokers. However we should take in consideration that the qualitative research writings on smoking deploys a range of methods bandage in this study we analyze the young people smoking practices within a social (focus group) context.Smoking is explicitly linked to pleasure and relaxation (often tied to drinking contexts see also Johnson et al. , 2000). Our participa nts also link other lifestyle practices to risk and they see life itself as a risk where preoccupation with smoking-related or any other problems is deemed excessive and paralyzing. To some extent, it is fair to say that our sample construed hazardous smoking as necessary to cope with their family/friends/ environment pressure. Overall our compend points to the various ways in which the young smokers skillfully deflect the concerns of a health-conscious culture.It gaslights how, in a period of increasing pressure on smokers to quit, the young people in our focus group have created a serial of complex and creative accounts to defend and preserve what is clearly perceived as an important social practice. Surely our young smokers are expressing unrealistic optimism (Weinstein, 1984), that is inaccurate perceptions of risk and susceptibility in relation to smoking and illness. For example some participants claimed that major health problems have not yet appeared (e. G. Current health is emphasizes) and that illness can be avoided by individual action (I. E. Tinting smoking in the near emerging). By contrast, psychosocial research, which conceptualizes smokers talk, helps us to appreciate how smoking is rationalized within relevant social groups (in this case young adults in educational settings), as well as highlighting the creativity and sophistication of lay accounts. In turn, attention to the grounded discourse of smokers may well help inform more effective health promotion interventions (Crossly, 2000). To build on the current analysis, future work could include street interviews with young smokers in the public places where smoking is popularly practiced (e. Designated smoking areas at university, in pubs). This live context might sample especially illuminating in terms of the discourses reproduced with respect to how smoking is defended while people are engaged in the act of smoking. As well, it would be informative to examine patterns of naturally occu rring conversation between young adult smokers where they gather. Such research would complement our focus group study by determining when and how health is introduced as a concern by young people themselves and examining how such concerns are negotiated.