Daily Fit Tip: Quit smoking!!!

It seems like an easy tip, even an obvious one but if that's the case, then why are so many people still smoking? I'm not sure about the rest of our fair country but here in New York City it seems one out of four people I pass on the streets is lighting up, despite messages from everyone from the surgeon general to our moms (even the ones who smoke).

It's a familiar scene. As someone who in the distant past dappled in the smoking arena myself, I hear people constantly pretending they don't smoke when in fact they do. Whether it's a casual cigarette after dinner with the one friend who smokes, or claiming to only smoke on weekends or when bar hopping, it's all the same: smoking is smoking is smoking. The figure that has always stuck in my mind is that smoking only one cigarette a day increases the chances for heart disease by 25%. Just one.

A brief message from My NYC Government News, a newsletter from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene sent to my email inbox recently started a new and very frightening campaign to get New Yorkers to quit smoking. The tagline is Cigarettes are eating you alive. Sounds more like the tagline for a horror film than a health campaign, but it may just work. Included in the email was a less-than-enchanting poster I could download, print out and post to persuade a smoker to cease with a bit of malevolence.

This tactic, a scare tactic, is one I've not been familiar with in the past. Normally I see ads on television offering gums and patches and slow declines in smoking rather than quitting cold turkey, as well as the ever-present smoking cessation hotlines for those who know they need help quitting but can't do it alone. Never before have I seen an ad campaign trying to scare people into quitting.

If it's the same organization, and I think it is, there is also a commercial on New York One, our local news channel, which shows the truly horrible things that can happen to one who does not quit smoking. Actual pictures of folks missing parts of their mouths or face are shown along with what a lung looks like after however many years of smoking. It was seriously more disgusting than the most recent Saw movie.

Scare tactics still not enough to get you to quit? Many simple but solid reasons offered by NYC.gov as to why it is important, more now than ever, to quit can be found here.