Perceptions of health risk and smoking habit in young people

Young people be also more likely to start mocking If their friends or family are quite a littlers. The present case Is a quantitative research with sm every(prenominal) adult green goddessrs (at the xx eruditeness Centre) based on focus meeting discussions where a range of grass-related topics were covered. 2. Sample The sample in this study included 6 males and 4 females, aged in the midst of 13 and 17 years, 7 smokers and 2 non-smokers. Of this group of adolescents only 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 different age categories. My conversation analytic perspective here concentrates on talk between speakers and allows me to highlight how meanings around fastball and health are worked up. Debated and disputed in the group. Informed consent was obtained from all(prenominal) participant prior to the Focus group interview (Appendix A and B). The focus group took place in th e Unanimous Learning Centre.For anonymity sympathys the name of the participants concord been changed. 3. Procedure In this study we used both focus groups of five participants each. Focus groups mimic natural peer groups, so that the data will likely be au indeedtic, rich and Informative. Focus groups have long been used In social science research, Including psychology (Crossly, 2000 Wilkinson, 2003), and female genitalia be particularly useful in identifying both diverse individual accounts and prevailing social factors which crop and constrain actions.In the context of young people and smoking, focus group research allows us to gain rag to the multiplicity of perspectives presented and will also illuminate how accounts are constructed and negotiated within peer groups. Participants were given a act of prompts about their views on smoking, such as Please spot me why you believe you started smoking and Please tell me what role you believe smoking/not smoking plays in your life. Participants were encouraged to discuss these views among themselves, with minimal remark from the facilitator.The discussion, which lasted around forty minute for each group, was recorded and then transcribed verbatim. 4. Analysis Health was broadly speaking not cited as a major concern for our young people, and was not participants count onmed much more concern with the financial burden engendered by smoking. When the topic of health risks was brought up, there was a general tendency o downplay or discount these. Moreover, it was claimed that smoking could bidction effectively as a form of accent 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 now Contesting smoking-related health risks It does straighten out you feel better pot 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 current smoking a style of misusing the self from the specter of disorder and mortality.For example, other mundane practices are cited which involve risk, and life itself is presented as stark(a) with risk Nicola Mimi like to specify yourself that youre not going to get cancer, I mean, theyre saying that cancer is caused by all these different things 0 1 mean whos to say that smoking is definitely the worst sensation? In this excerpt there is many 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, honourable one of any number of possible causes of cancer (so many things), and therefore not worthy of disproportionate attention. E. Gene ralizes the notion of risk everything is bad for you now so that living per SE becomes inured with risk, something that affects everyone. Note the radical case formulations which litter this extract all these different things So, smoking is part of life and is respectable with care. Facilitator So, are health concerns an issue? Simon Well, yeah.Not really, I suppose, because sometimes you feel like crap because your lungs are hurting, because youve been caning it all weekend, but you think, 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 take of living forever? You know what I mean? Aaron But dont you, sometimes you unspoiled think Well, whats the conduct of it? Youre Just breathing in horrible smoke into your body Simon Its like whats the stratum of drinking? Its funThe health risks of smoking are conceded, with reference to current, minor symptoms . However, smoking is likened to other pleasurable activities (e. G. drinking) and anything/everything you enjoy so that living is defined in harm of enjoyment over risk, the emphasis is on fun and not denying oneself enjoyment even if it means a shorter life-span or inhaling horrible smoke. sorrel A guy, 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 watch over someone like that, its Just like, whoa So, citing cases, where smoking has not impeded sporting 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 arouse because impressive, and further contesting the connection between smoking and not being healthy. Lucas I knew somebody 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 stop drinking they do seem to die. In this extract, the dangers of stopping smoking are emphasizes, thereby inverting the normalizing about pickings up or continuing 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 immediate response concerning health fears is not taken up as the others proceed to reject this pre-occupation. David directly 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 particip ant put it it Just shows that youre having a good time, you know, drinking and having a cigarette, and it Just large-minded 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 heater as stress-relief A very predominant theme cross all discussions was the benefits of smoking in footing of stress relief, arising from various sources 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 kindhearted 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 busted me, like my family, Vie been thrown out of my house and thats the reason why I started smoking a lot more because of more stress and stuff. I do think that having a cigarette ma kes me slacken a bit. Tara At the moment 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 doctor not to stop smoking he says its got anger management, it calms me down.Both participants point to the grim 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 expect that to make me think Right, need to stop smoking, or whatever, but straight away I went Mum, give us a bag, because I honestly didnt know what to do and I needed something to concentrate on it gives you something to think about other than whats g oing 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 finding is in line of reasoning with other research on alternative rationalities (Crossly, 2000) with adult smokers. However we should take in consideration that the qualitative research literature on smoking deploys a range of methods while in this study we hit the books the young people smoking practices within a social (focus group) context.Smoking is explicitly linked to pleasure and comfort (often tied to drinking contexts see also Johnson et al. , 2000). Our participants also link other lifestyle practices to risk and they see life itself as a ris k 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 risky smoking as necessary to cope with their family/friends/ environment pressure. boilersuit our analysis 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 series of complex and creative accounts to defend and preserve what is clearly perceived as an burning(prenominal) 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 future). 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 prove 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 occurring conversation between young adult smokers where they gather. Such researc h would support our focus group study by determining when and how health is introduced as a concern by younger people themselves and examining how such concerns are negotiated.