It’s important to teach children the dangers of smoking. During their teenage years, children might feel pressured to begin smoking cigarettes. Therefore, you’ll want to ensure they know how harmful this habit is. In this post, you’ll learn five ways that smoking cigarettes harms your health.

  • Gum Disease

    If you want to keep your gums and teeth healthy, it’s best to avoid smoking cigarettes. The many toxins found in cigarettes cause immense harm to your mouth. Inhaling cigarette smoke is known to cause severe gum disease. Those with smokers mouth can also end up getting periodontitis. This condition occurs when gum disease occurs beneath the gums, requiring deep scale dental cleanings. If that wasn’t bad enough, smoking cigarette also yellows your teeth. You could always drive home the importance of proper oral health by obtaining a giant toothbrush for your class. Unfortunately, smokers mouth is only one of the many ways this habit affects your health.

  • Arthritis

    You might think that arthritis only affects older adults. However, this isn’t always the case. Cigarette smoking increases your risk of developing this painful condition. Making matters worse, arthritis isn’t limited to only occurring in your wrists. Arthritis can occur in many parts of the body.

  • Premature Aging

    Another common side effect of smoking is premature aging. You might want to find health education products that show the signs of aging attributing to smoking. Smokers mouth is known to damage your oral health. However, cigarette smoking also causes damage to your skin. In turn, this leads to smokers typically developing wrinkles much faster than those who don’t smoke.

  • Reduced Bone Strength

    If you’ve ever broken a bone, you know how much this hurts. Unfortunately, smokers have less bone density than non smokers. This means those who smoke are at a higher risk for breaking their bones. Broken bones typically mean spending long amounts of time in the hospital. If you’re wanting to teach this to students, consider having a smoking chart showing how this habit harms the body.

  • Yellow Fingernails

    Many people understandably care about how their hands look to others. Considering that, you’ll want to know that smoking turns your fingers and fingernails yellow. As you smoke, nicotine is released through your cigarette. While holding a cigarette, this nicotine has nowhere to go but onto your hands.

To summarize, there are several serious health dangers associated with smoking. It’s important to teach your students how real these dangers are. One study found that nearly 65% of students are considered to be visual learners. Therefore, a drug identification guide also works well to keep children away from other dangers. Teaching children about the dangers of smoking helps ensure they’ll make the wise choice of avoiding cigarettes throughout their lives.